I have a few thoughts on teaching elementary that I want to share. This is my last post for my elementary years and I still have a ton of stories. I want to say that teaching for nine years in elementary was the best prelude to teaching high school.…
Category Archives: Personal
Day 46 October 24, 2022 Breaking Up A Meeting
Welcome back from Fall Break.
Today is one of the ways to break up a staff meeting. Any teacher who has been to a staff meeting understands. Unfortunately, they can’t be leveled like we are asked to do in our classrooms.…
Day 44 – October 12, 2022 Mentors
Teaching has given me the good fortune to meet many influential teachers over the last few years. One of my favorites was meeting and talking to Donald Graves. Donald Graves was a leader in the reforming of writing. His books stand out as beacons of light as a way to instruct young writers.…
Day 43 – October 11, 2022 Interview Intervention
It is not what you know but who you know. This will be a repeating theme in my story. On September 6 or Day 18, I spoke about getting hired. This is about the interview before getting hired. The first time I encountered this was while getting hired at Montview.…
Day 41 – October 7, 2022 Thematic Phones
In the words of that great philosopher Kermit: “It isn’t being green.” Most elementary teachers use themes to enhance their rooms and build the sense of family. My first few years saw me use a frog and green theme. It was at this time that cell phones were starting to become more common.…
Day 40 – October 6, 2022 Work Wife
Usually, businesses and other organizations make sure not to have spouses working together. In our case at Montview, we were looking to hire a special education teacher. My principal asked me if it was okay to hire my wife away from the private school where she was working at the time.…
Day 39 – October 5, 2022 Know Your Audience
One of the important things for a professional is to measure their words. We have all opened our mouths and placed our foot directly in. This is even more important to be aware of if you open your mouth and insert your foot and potentially offend a supervisor.…
Day 38 – October 4, 2022 Persona Non Grata
I was a member of a small group of innovators that started technology specials in elementary. In our district, we had Carl W, Andy Y, Randy W, and me. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to create something exciting and new.…
Day 37 – October 3, 2022 Sarah
I had the joy of starting a technology special at Montview. It was a perfect rotation for a year-round school and kept the specialists on a similar schedule. I had kindergarten through 5th grade all year long. I had to develop lessons and work for every level.…
Day 36 – September 30, 2022 Teaching Battlegrounds
Reading and writing is a battleground upon which all elementary teachers toil. It sounds so civilized when said that way. It is a conflict that teachers face every day. Often the battle rages beyond our classrooms. Most cases pit modern or progressive ideas against “I learned it this way and so can my kid.”Day 35 – September 29, 2022 Jesus & Moises
Names are fun and they can have some humor. One day almost thirty years ago was particularly challenging. A problem that Montview has is the transiency rate of the school. We often had 50 or more kids rotate through our class in any given year.…
Day 31 – September 23, 2022 First Parent Conference
I had a cooperating teacher that was very savvy when it came to training me. Student teaching is always stressful but parent-teacher conferences can be the worst. Barb decided I needed to do some of them alone while she sat and watched.
Day 29 September 21, 2022 Get Involved
Get involved. I stress this to every new teacher. I also caution them about picking what to get involved with. Ask about time commitments and extra work. Sometimes working on school or district groups requires nothing except attending the meetings and some review work.
Day 28 September 20, 2022 Lighten Up!
I believe that if you take yourself too seriously, others won’t take you seriously at all. That is a bold statement to take about teachers. Many teachers suffer from the “too seriously” bug. They know that their job is pivotal to the success of a community, state, and country.…
Day 26 – September 16, 2022 Book Orders
The importance of reading can never be under stated. Today I am going to talk about one of my most stressful and rewarding times as a student and seeing the same in my students. Book orders were one of the best memories I had as a child.…
Day 25 – September 15, 2022 Pre-Teaching
Bureaucracy and red tape fill every profession. My first encounter with it in education was as a candidate for a teaching license. I thought it would be pretty straightforward. That was my first mistake. I was toiling away at my classes, weekly observations, and working full-time.
Day 22 – September 12, 2022 9/11
Working on 9/11 in a school was a difficult undertaking. All of the obvious questions swirled in our heads. Do we tell the children? Do you interrupt teaching to view it? Not every classroom had a projector or TV so do we show them anything?…
Day 21 – September 9, 2022 Always Learning
Teaching has given me opportunities that others might not have. One of my favorite was serving as an exhibit interpreter for the Imperial Tombs of China at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in the mid 1990s. It seized on my desire to learn anything I can.…
Day 20 – September 8, 2022 Mrs. Truman
Recently I did a post about the cafeteria manager who got teddy bears for students. I want to now tell the story of the “Book Lady” that kids loved. Mrs. Truman lived down the block from Montview and had lived there for many years.…
Day 18, – September 6, 2022 Would You Consider
I have had good luck with serendipity during my career. The first example was how I started working in Aurora. I had an interview with Montview and with Rock Ridge in Castle Rock. Rock Ridge was the school where I student taught.…
Day 15 – August 29, 2022 Second Jobs
It has been a long tradition that teachers will often get a second job to make ends meet. I was no different. What can be helpful is to find a position that assists your teaching. When I was getting started as a teacher, Barnes & Noble was coming into the Denver market.
Day 14 – August 26, 2022 Teacher Sticks
The influence of a teacher is far-reaching with their students. Administrators can also have an extended impact. There is some debate about whether an administrator’s effects are positive or negative. I have been fortunate to work with some excellent administrators. There is one that stands head and shoulders above the others.
Day 13 – August 25, 2022 Collaboration
Collaboration is a key factor in the success of any group. I had been hired to teach first and second grade at Montview. This was a team that was connected and worked well together. We had our official leader. Cheryl did a nice job of keeping us focused and providing quality instruction for our students.
Day 12 – August 24, 2022 National Conferences
The previous two stories had a serious tone so it is time to return to the fun. When I was teaching at Montview I had the good fortune to help write the science curriculum for the district. I was a part of the first and second-grade team.
Day 9 – August 19, 2022 Alarm Clock
I hear from students that they will change their habits when they get into the “real world” but school isn’t as important. I always try to have a discussion with them that they are better off establishing good habits now when it is easier. …
German Exchange – June 17, 2009
Monday June 15th found us in Strasbourg, France. It is a unique town on the Rhine River and has alternated between France and Germany for centuries. Again we had the chance to ride the trains into France. It was a short hop and didn’t take much time at all.…
Baseball & Vespers
I am not Catholic but I coach baseball at a Catholic high school. I have discovered many traditions that I like from the athletes and the school but there is one that I have shared with them. Vespers is traditional nightly prayers or devotions around sunset.
THE DAY I WANTED TO QUIT TEACHING
We were given the question at an in-service about the day that we wanted to quit teaching. Every teacher has them and we were asked to keep this private and think about how that might also apply to students and how they feel about school.…
In My Room
There’s a world where I can go
And tell my secrets to
We grew up with the threat of being sent to our rooms. Even with the threat of our rooms, we used the time as a way to be angry, happy, lovesick, sad, hopeful, and all of the other emotions associated with being a kid.