My Thirty-Year Educational Crusade
Please join me in my celebration. Stories will be posted for every student contact day this school year. The first will be elementary stories and will cover my time as an elementary teacher at Montview. The remainder will be stories from my 21 years at Rangeview High School.
We started moving toward one-to-one Chromebooks several years ago. We started with carts in classrooms of 20 to 25 each. I sometimes have moments of OCD and I like everything neatly done. My interns and I set up the carts in the rooms. We started Read more
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. Rob Shurich before did Read more
The Beach Boys' song Graduation Day is fitting for the last week of the school year. https://youtu.be/ujPojOwEgn8 Another good song: Graduation by Vitamin C https://youtu.be/tz_NxOF7RB4 My wish for the kids by Lee Ann Womack https://youtu.be/RV-Z1YwaOiw Read more
Sometimes we need to serve as monitors for our students. I had a teacher in high school who refused to use my nickname, and his reasoning always made sense. He felt that it was important to honor the student, and using their name instead of Read more
If you know my daughter, please don't tell her I wrote this story about her in high school. All children lie to their parents a little. No matter how virtuous they are there is a fib here and there. My child is no different. We Read more
People need refuge on occasion. I am an introvert at heart and can spend hours just in quiet or with my music. I know my facade is as an extrovert but that is what I do to teach and be in the world. I have Read more
We are in our last week of instruction. This is a time I reflect on what went well and what needs changing for next year. This year I don't have to plan for next year so I will take time to reflect on thirty years. Read more
Another story about Amanda from my elementary days. It was my first week of teaching and I had the principal come into my classroom and ask if I wanted a gifted student. I don't know of any teacher that doesn't want to work with the Read more
These 2 songs were important during my years of high school. We always looked to be free and so we sang Freebird a lot. The other one for this week is the song played by every high school student sing its release in 1972. https://youtu.be/37ALmuMSHEI Read more
I saved some of the juicy things for last because I didn't want to get in trouble. These are two stories that happened in this last quarter. Kids are entertaining me to the end and I appreciate it. The first story was a simple comment Read more
The is nothing more sacred to a teacher than the opportunity to use the restroom. We hold it dear and do not want anything disturbing our routines. When I got to Rangeview I was in my early 40s and was one of the younger people Read more
This is a quick story but still one of my favorites. Nate was a teacher in Social Studies. He had a weird sense of humor and if you put us both in the same room we were dangerous. Standardized State Testing is a horrible waste Read more