There are a few questions asked by every umpire before a game. One of the most important question is: “Are your players properly equipped?” This is the do your players all have a jockstrap and cup on. This is critical for a few positions and was often a battle for us as coaches.…
Tag Archives: Rangeview
Hacking The World
Creating cybersecurity classes can be fraught with concerns, as schools and districts often harbor apprehensions about the potential for inadvertently fostering hackers or criminals. It’s essential that these programs incorporate a strong moral component. Fortunately, my experience has shown that many students self-select out once they realize that cybersecurity involves more than just breaching systems.…
Perpetuate The Non-Fiction
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.…
Day 177 May 24, 2023 Graduation Day
This is the completion of my official retirement blog. I did exactly what I said I would do. I have a story for every student contact day. I will be branching out a little bit because I still have many stories to share.…
Day 175 May 22, 2023 No PDA’s Allowed
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.…
Day 96 January 26, 2023 – Cake Apology
Kids are much more observant than we sometimes give them credit for. I have a short story but the picture tells the whole story. This was not one of my students. I happened to be walking by this young man during finals week on his way to class.…
Day 95 January 25, 2023 – Shout Key
This story happened to Ingrid from my department but it is too good not to include. When I first started at Rangeview we taught computer applications which was the Office Suite. We also taught keyboarding. At this time we also had a graduation requirement of Practical Arts and our department counted for that.…
Day 94 January 24, 2023 – Trash Homage
Today is my birthday post. With that in mind, let’s talk trash. One of the joys of teaching is seeing the artistic skills of some students. I casually was speaking of how the big new trash cans we got were bland.…
Day 92 January 20, 2023 – Home Advantage
My daughter was a captain of the girl’s swim team in her junior and senior years. She was the one to greet the opposing team and captains before the meet. Her favorite story was to tell the other team that they were swimming in thirty-year-old water.…
Day 91, January 19, 2023 – Marching Band
The sights and sounds of a high school are sometimes the most amazing sounds you can hear. I live in the community where Rangeview is located. From my bathroom window, I can see the school. One of my most vivid memories during the summers was the Marching Band.…
Day 90 January 18, 2023 – Mile 342
342 is an important number to Rangeview and almost everyone who passes by the sign has no idea what it means. The number changed how the building and external amenities were placed on our site. Rangeview has one of the smallest land footprints in the state for a 5A high school.…
Day 89 January 17, 2023 – Little Dots
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. holiday so I have a short week. One of the great mysteries at Rangeview is
the white dots on the walls on the first floor. Most people go through their entire 4 years as a student and don’t know they are even there.…
Day 83 January 6, 2022 – My Flag
I am a strong believer in our commitment to diversity at Rangeview. We have been a No Place For Hate designated school by the ADL for many years. One of our added pieces is the Diversity Week we have every year.…
Day 79, December 14, 2022 Airplane Cockpit
This is a thank you and one a secret about our building. In Aurora, we have been lucky with the community passing bonds for school improvements. In my tenure in APS we have passed them all. I will later tell some stories about being on the committees that passed these bonds.…
Day 78, December 13, 2022 Wifi Highjacking
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.…
Day 74 December 7, 2022 – Bromance
Today is the 81st anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing to force the US into the Second World War. With that in mind, I will do my favorite veteran. This person is not a staff member at Rangeview but was as important a part of my work as most of my faculty colleagues.…
Day 73 December 6, 2022 – Sharpshooter
When I started spending more time in Computer Science I spent a lot of time with another colleague in our department. Tom Fox had a programming background and taught our most advanced courses. I was lucky enough to take several professional development classes using Java when the AP CSA class moved from C++ to Java.…
Day 71 December 2, 2022 Binaca
Another department member was very influential and generous. Cindy Hope was a character and allowed me to do my first traditional business class with Management and Entrepreneurship. She ran the PACE class which allowed students to get credit for working. It wasn’t just a blow-off where you just had to turn in pay stubs.…
Day 70 December 1, 2022 – Baseball Coach
One of the great pleasures I have had at Rangeview is coaching baseball. There will be many stories later about our baseball escapades. The colleague that I am thankful for is our head coach Mike Hamilton. Our field for the lower levels were separate from the varsity and JV field and we liked it that way.…
Day 67 November 22, 2022 Inclusion
Yesterday I told a story of inspiration from a student at Rangeview. Today I will tell the story of one of my students. We had a wheelchair-bound student with a deteriorating muscular disease. He was interested in art and graphic design.…
Day 66 November 21, 2022 – Inspirational Moment
It is Thanksgiving week and I thought it was time for a couple of inspirational stories. Today and tomorrow will be stories that still bring tears to my eyes because of the inspiring story of students. I remember my first couple of years and some of the kids we had.…
Day 65 November 18, 2022 Bumper Sticker
This is one of my favorite stories. This one is about someone else but is well worth sharing. Different people have different takes on things. I don’t put bumper stickers on my car because I keep those opinions to myself most of the time.…
Day 64 November 17, 2022 Employee 397
Our employee number is used for an immense amount of record keeping. The most telling is when we use it during employee meetings for staff development. When I give mine I am usually met with: “No honey, the 5 or 6 digit number you use for payroll.”…
Day 61 November 14, 2022 Campfires in Cyberspace
A teacher has a lot of choice in their environment. I did cause a little problem my first couple of years when I moved my room. The class was all in rows with the computer facing the front of the room.…
Day 59 November 10, 2022 Fuzzy Dice
One of the joys of teaching high school is the fun of putting students into real world settings. I got my first lesson when I had the Management & Entrepreneurship class. A third quarter assignment was to go through the process of creating a business.…
Day 58 November 9, 2022 Intersession
Intersession! This was one of the greatest ideas we ever had at Rangeview. Our principal felt that we needed something to spice things up a bit. It was also at a time when the first semester ended in January. It was a strange three weeks.…
Day 57 November 8, 2022 Wiring Techniques
Building improvements and retrofits are common in schools. Over the years we have had several additions and some remodeling. The two biggest have been additions and wiring retrofits. The wiring is the most important to me as a computer and business teacher.…
Day 56 November 7, 2022 Balloons & Golf Balls
One of the joys of working at Rangeview was the Business Department team. Cindy, Rob, Tom, and Ingrid were a joy to work with. We had fun and still were leaders in the building. None of us took ourselves too seriously and enjoyed the relationships with the students.…
Day 55 November 4, 2022 Near-Sighted
I have been near-sighted for as long as I can remember. It was discovered in junior high school by a wonderful English teacher. John Glover discovered that when I sit in the back I just goofed off and was a class clown.…
Day 54 November 3, 2022 First Day at RHS
Starting at Rangeview was a new start and a new challenge. I was working with a new staff and learning new systems. The first thing I discovered was that a staff of almost 150 is very different from an elementary school.…
Day 53 November 2, 2022 Interview
Yesterday I talked about meeting Marc Stine at my Aunt Dorothy’s funeral and the winding way I put in for a transfer. Today is about the interview process. I had mentioned to my principal at Montview that I might not even get an interview.…
Day 52 November 1, 2022 High School?
I am moving into high school. I will still do an elementary story now and then but it is time to transfer to Rangeview High School. I will be using my experience in several areas as the basis for these stories.…
Day 49 – October 27, 2022 Sharing Ideas
Today I landed in Orlando, Florida getting ready to present at the PLTW Summit for the next three days. I have been to many conferences in the last 30 years. This weekend will be the last one as an APS teacher.…
Day 48 – October 26, 2022 Financial Fiduciary
I am a big fan of planning. There exists a group of people that spend money like there is no end and that they will always have money. The other piece is that people often look at the new shiny toy and feel the need to have it.…
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.…
Week 6 Musical Interlude
This one is special for Homecoming Week. Once a Raider, Always a Raider!
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Week 5 Musical Interlude
This is a message I wish I could get across to all students. It does speak about teachers and school at the beginning but the full message is in the chorus.
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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.…