Teaching Handwriting?

Being an elementary teacher, the question of whether or not we should teach handwriting occasionally comes up. Actually, it came up this year for our 3rd and 4th grade teachers, as they were handed a new curriculum that required 80 minutes a week to teach handwriting. To me, that doesn’t make a lot [...]

Live Blog

Just had the idea hit me to live blog our high school basketball games for our school website. Cover It Live works great, why not use it? Now, I wonder if I can work in some pay?

Curriculum, Rabble, Rabble, PLC

I’ve got a 1/2 day math curriculum meeting in the a.m. this week and a 1/2 day “PLC Planning Committee” meeting for the other 1/2 day.  There is no way this goes well.  Luckily (hopefully), I’m the only faculty member that is on both committees.  This should allow for a lot of ideas and discussion [...]

Recognition

Recognition.  No matter how vague or discreet the recognition is, we all love it. My Curriculum Director actually sent my name to two different districts this week in response to inquiries about a state sponsored math project.  This may not sound like a big deal, but I’ve been openly critical of our local curriculum.  Here [...]

Redemption

Had a bad afternoon. It happens.
Saved it the last two days by knocking them out of the park.

Great Morning, Terrible Afternoon

Yesterday we had a couple of inches of snow falling all day.  Obviously, the students start thinking snow day (as do teachers).  We weren’t that lucky. Now, I understand the students are worked up and not exactly engaged.  Set up a lesson with a math game to introduce coordinates for my math class, went great.  [...]

Results Based Pay

School policy and educational policy are two very hot topics in the United States at this time. There are many reasons why and I don’t have to say much more than testing or accountability to name a few. However, before I begin I will say a large part of the controversy is the [...]

Not a textbook, but just as bad…

My school doesn’t use a textbook for math, so I’m not quite in the same boat as Dan.  Mine might be worse, it’s a scripted program that actually has quotes that teachers are supposed to use during instruction.  Luckily we’re not held to that if we understand 5th grade math (some of the co-workers need [...]