November 29, 2012 Thursday Had another Navy dream. Happily, they are getting rarer and more innocuous. For years I had primarily two kinds of dreams. I would either be frantically returning late for leave, or facing the dreary first day of another six month deployment. Increasingly common is the type I had last night: asking…
Tag: Teaching
Spitballing
April 7, 1997 Monday In one month will be our real last day of actual school (the official last week is Senior Week). One month. I don’t know a senior who isn’t ready to graduate. A goal I have for myself is to take my French teacher Mrs. Spacey the rest of the way around…
The Two O’Clock Show Begins in Five Minutes, Kids!
written August 7, 2011 The final education interview/review before beginning student teaching went well. Like many of the other candidates I spent several days reviewing educational theories and my own past musings on the subject before last Tuesday, yet the actually interview was much more conversational in nature. Either that, or simply being ultra-prepared…
Gaining Ownership of My Classroom
written August 11, 2011 I become a teacher on Monday, in four days. After attending an initial district assembly today in the high school auditorium (complete with a motivational YouTube montage) Sarah (Ms. Barber, my cooperating teacher) and I had some time to discuss the approaching semester. She’s giving me freedom to do pretty much…
Whitey’s Close Encounters of the Technological Kind
written December 14, 2012 May Peckham is an only child, so it will forever be unknown if she could be replicated or would still remain singular art. Yet I believe I have found her other-dimensional sibling that could have been—the younger doppelganger sister May would have practiced accents and recited monologues with, cooked together…
Tour de Madison County
written April 29, 2012 Time to fly. The best thing about Edwardsville–what I will miss most of all–is its wide-ranging web of old rail lines converted to concrete bike paths. The Giant gets a workout several times a week. For most rides I like to have a destination, as both a marker of progress…
Kickball Injuries and a Flock of Pint-Sized Geese
written May 8, 2012 I had not yet subbed at Jefferson Elementary, an out-of-the-way school in a quiet residential neighborhood of Collinsville, west of the downtown. I immediately thought it looked like a smaller version of my own massive, red-brick elementary building built in 1892. But it seemed to be deserted. I went…
The Island Within A Maze
written April 21, 2012 One of biggest surprises of teaching so far is that I really enjoy being in what they call “behavioral rooms.” These are sparsely populated classes that are somehow deemed temperamentally unfit to be in regular classrooms, who all work at a lower level. What is perhaps most rewarding, in an…
An Ansty Audience of Small, Aspiring Cheetahs
written December 4, 2012 A grey pall was cast over the bi-state this morning. The drizzle urged me to leave a little early. My eyes followed the dark road and while buzzing St. Louis traffic flew around me, my ear followed NPR, dwelling this morning on Syrian violence and the “nonstarters” of both Democrats…
We Know English Good Enough: Final Peaks, Valleys and Deuces to an American Classroom
written December 7, 2012 In more buoyant spirits. Walking out to my car at 6:40 am, throwing my trusty substitute teacher’s satchel in the back, and departing the slowly awakening St. Louis for Illinois with NPR accompaniment, is, I dare to say, becoming a welcome routine. I am an English teacher today, one of…
No One Will Believe You 