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 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
We have very short speeches during graduation. The reason is that the event is about the graduates and not the adults. In APS we have a special reason for not letting school board members speak. It is not because of all of them but one Read more
I saved this story because it is one that still embarrasses me. With our upper baseball field, we were not able to have a fence around it and so we struggled to keep people off of the field. We were lucky and had people in Read more
When I look at my last year of high school for the second time, I get nostalgic about my life. I tend to remember the things from my first trip through high school. It was not the joyous romp that is often portrayed. My memory Read more
Bantering with students is a way that teachers make connections with students. I think I have used many catchphrases over the years and some take on a life of their own. It culminated years ago in one of my students creating a poster of things Read more
When learning a language people find helpful ways to remember words. Patrice who was our German teacher was very good at finding those connections. Another key factor is the repetition of words and language. Patrice understood this and was always reminding kids of words and Read more
I promised stories about French Monkeys all the way back on day 131 of the blog. Here goes... In Germany, we travel around the region for fun and history. One of the lesser-known attractions is a Monkey Park called La Montagne des Singes. Roughly Read more