Real Teacher Blogs

It’s that time of year again. For the past month my school’s Next Generation Recruitment Committee has been meeting twice a week after school to offer New York City’s best and brightest “no leavers behinders” a chance to work at our public high school in the south Bronx. 

Being a scientist-turned-educator and techie, it’s hard to avoid my inner geek.  Not only can I not avoid it, but now I've found the soundtrack for my inner geek life: Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants!

I enjoy a lot of the typical nerd-core genres, like Star Wars, Lego, and Joss Whedon’s TV shows. When it comes to music, I usually listen to mainstream stuff (with some ska and Dave Matthews Band mixed in). Recently, however, my love for the band They Might Be Giants collided with my science-geek nature.

Word clouds are taking over the web, helping teachers rain knowledge down on students!

Wordle may have blazed the way for work clouds in the classroom, but Standford's Word Sift brings visual learning to the next level with the additional customization options, drag-and-drog images, and much more.

As hard as it may be for us to admit sometimes, teachers make mistakes. We make less as we get better, but we’ll always make them.  

Sometimes, I forget to enter a grade where there needs to be one. At the beginning of the year, I tell all my students that one unfortunate soul will have their essay lost among a stack of my papers and it won’t be found for two years if ever.  (I’ve already hit my lost essay quota this year, Vanessa’s defense of Hamlet’s behavior, and my guilt has made me super anal retentive since.) 

At times like these, I’ve found that it doesn’t hurt to say “I’m sorry. I made a mistake,” and not to follow it with, “I work 60-75 hours a week, I deserve one.” 

 Wow.  With the mass firings in Rhode Island, it has been a rough week in the world of education, but I’d like to share my magical teaching moment that makes it all worth it.

Despite how heavy my heart is as I write this, I will swallow my sadness and tell you a story that might help to keep you motivated despite all this insanity raging on outside of our classrooms.