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January 31, 2012

A friend of mine recently lamented that too many people don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its.” He wrote what he hoped would be a simple mnemonic device that would help writers use the terms properly. I would like to think that this would help folks make the distinction, but I know better. Therefore [...]

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χ².

November 15, 2011

A tongue-in-cheek article by A. Barton Hinkle claims that “Now We Know Why Children Are Getting Dumber.” In essence, it’s because the volume of knowledge keeps expanding. There’s always more literature out there to be pored over, there’s always more scientific innovation and discovery to help explain the natural world, and there’s always more history [...]

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Protected: The wrong button.

September 27, 2011

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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Heinz.

July 25, 2011

Whilst going through some files and folders yesterday, I found some paperwork from my student teaching internship and was reminded of a story. Clemson didn’t call it an internship, they called it a “practicum,” which I suppose is a more accurate term, but I call it an internship because otherwise most folks don’t know what [...]

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To Mrs. Coburn.

June 14, 2011

Many many moons ago I was nearly killed in an industrial accident (not the gamma radiation kind, but the impalement-on-the-axle-of-a-large-machine kind) and thereupon decided it was time to go into an arguably safer profession: teaching. I enrolled in education courses for the next year, did a semester’s internship after that, and then began searching for [...]

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Vote The Fifth.

May 20, 2011

For the “free response” part of their AP exams, students are given green booklets that contain the questions and pink booklets in which to write their answers. They can scribble whatever they wish in either book, but the pink ones get sent off to be scored while the green ones end up in my file [...]

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Out of the park.

January 14, 2011

Yesterday the principal told me that I made it through to the next round of the district-level Teacher of the Year competition. That means we’re down to about 15 or 20 semifinalists out of 160 nominees. I was honored and thrilled, or at least as thrilled as I can get. So I asked what was [...]

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On accountability.

December 8, 2010

For the district-level TOTY competition, I had to send in an application packet that included responses to questions about public education and my own teaching practices. One of the questions was about accountability in public education: Who should be accountable in public education and for what should they be held accountable? Please include how this/these [...]

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Whoopsie.

November 29, 2010

I’ve been asked to write my opinions about a number of pedagogical matters, fifteen pages max. I’m down to twenty-seven. They should’ve just asked me to give my opinion in person, I would’ve just shrugged and said, “Ah… you know.” But no, they asked me to write, and to write about matters I’m angry about. [...]

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Two honors.

September 27, 2010

Today I was the proud recipient of two honors: 1. My Paxon colleagues voted me Teacher of the Year. Nominations were made at the last faculty meeting; voting was done in last week’s department meetings; the principal made the announcement today. I am grateful for the honor. Now I get to participate in the district-level [...]

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The seminar.

September 19, 2010

To recap: Turns out that someone at the district office was looking at our AP United States History pass rates and thought it might be a good idea if we could talk to some of the newer teachers in the district about teaching the course. They want to set up a one-day seminar some time [...]

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