I had to laugh when I saw the header image I have left up there since last year. Look at those beanbags! So upright. So… unused. Things have changed a little bit in my room since last year. Can you find the beanbag chairs now? Here’s to all the really cool stuff that has happened in […]

There’s this poem called Kindness to Snails by Fleur Adock that I came across today. In the poem, a mother is telling her child to help save a poor snail that is stuck on their window-sill, because, well, that’s the kind thing to do. The poet then mentions a bunch of other unkind things that she herself had […]

There are so many things to write about. I have already been living in the 2015-16 school year for a month — a MONTH — and have not said a word here. Each day at a school is like a million days anywhere else. I see things every few minutes and think, “I could write […]

This week I am attending The Educator Leader Cadre meeting for PARCC. One of the breakout sessions I attended yesterday was called “Art & Core Skills = Life Skills” and was lead by Bruce D. Taylor. You put the word “arts” in a session at a meeting for a nationwide test two things will happen: […]

For every year that I have taught since graduating, I have directed a play. At my first school, I was halfway through my first year when I helped put on a simple, music-less production of Peter Pan. The following year, it was The Wizard of Oz. After that, we entered the world of Music Theatre International’s Broadway […]

“He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained […]

Every day at school is like a thousand days anywhere else. I don’t know where to begin in order to dive back into writing so that I can document and preserve, document and preserve. More for my sake than for anyone else. So the next few posts will be filling in the blanks, catching up […]

So today we started Safe Racer. The students design and create a car that rolls down a ramp with an egg inside it. The goal is to create a car that travels far and is also safe for the egg when it hits a barrier at the end of the ramp. Today, I asked the students […]

It’s been two weeks since we started Genius Hour, and 2 weeks since my last post. In between snow days, sick days, and delays, the students have had some time to really get into it, but I haven’t had time to sit down and post. So here I am, post-pizza on a Friday night, ready to […]

Wouldn’t it be great if every teacher knew every child’s passion, and allowed them to pursue those passions within the regular school day? The idea behind Genius Hour is simple: increased interest leads to increased productivity. It’s inspired by Google’s policy of allowing its employees to have 20% of their time set aside to explore projects they’re […]