I believe that as we grow up, life gives us signals about what we should be doing. The key is to pay attention. Sometimes, those signals come later in life. My last fifteen years of teaching were spent in computer science, cybersecurity, and engineering.…
At every staff development day in my thirty years of teaching, we were asked to connect the curriculum to the students or the real world. Over the last few years, however, I believe we have lost focus and forcefully removed the backbone of these ideas, using words like frivolous, childish, silly, and trivial.…
The following excerpt is from Seymour Papert’s book Mindstorms, published in 1980, yet its relevance to current classroom practices persists. The book is over forty years old and is still as important today as it was in 1980. The passage below speaks to a project by students using “Turtle” programming to create a holiday sign.…
One of the hallmarks of my business classes was bringing them real-world situations. I told a lot of stories about me and my friends and so I had a series of law stories based on Lakewood. This was not my idea.…
This is one of my favorites. Charlie Brown by the Coasters. This was my life in school.
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This song doesn’t talk about school specifically but does talk about the joy of September when school started. It also speaks to aging and I know that in the December of my career I am enjoying the return to earlier times.…
CyberPatriot changed my career in many ways. That first group was an amazing year. None of us knew what we were doing. The students, mentor, and I were not sure how to train. We did it every Wednesday afternoon for a couple of hours.…
A little advice from James Brown in 1967.
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BRING TOILET PAPER AND HAND WARMERS. It is not often that you see a headline like this. In 2009 we had a group of students attending the Presidential Inauguration in Washington DC. The trip had been planned for many months without regard to who the winner would be.…
I am now going to do some songs that are not the most wholesome. These are some fun songs but not the best influences but most of us have heard these and enjoy them. The first is a J. Geils Band song.…
Last day before break. This is a bittersweet day. I am tired and need the break but I know that after three days I will be chomping at the bit. Vacations are a time to evaluate and prepare. The one lesson I have learned in thirty years is that no matter the planning, there will be things that change it and shuffle things.…
Being a computer teacher has its advantages. I often will get things before anyone else and get to try them out for others. Earlier in the blog, I spoke about the introduction of laptops to our itinerant staff and how we were unprepared for them as a district.…
Teachers feel judged daily by students, parents, administrators, district administrators, the state board of education, state legislatures, and society as a whole. Nothing about that system is going to change. Teachers who spend countless hours railing against this are doing themselves and their students a disservice.…
Some good old Folk music. It is a part of my war protest music and is a very fun song with a serious message. It sometimes gets lost on people who don’t understand satire but I hope you enjoy it.
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A little upbeat Chuck Berry as we get into the rhythm of school for this year.
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A hot day in July 1993 was my first day as a teacher in my own classroom. I was teaching at Montview Elementary in Aurora, Colorado. It was a year-round school in the northern part of the city. It was the oldest portion of the city and had a high transiency rate. …
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.…
Mr. Price Owen, who was my History teacher, loved his opaque projector at Lakewood High School in the 1970s. I enjoyed it when he would put something on there and we would all squint and try to read the information from a book or document.