About this Blog
The next of my to-be-abandoned blogs
I’ve been mulling over in my brain all year an idea TFA bombarded us with at Induction and Institute. The buzzword “transformational change” was bandied about more times than I care to think about. I don’t have all the literature in front of me, but the basics of transformational change were that we have two years minimum in this teaching thing, so we need to urgently affect as much radical change(1) as possible while we are here. In order to do that, you pretty much gotta burn at 150% capacity and live in a constant cycle of reflection/improvement and only come up for air if you feel like you’re going to pass out(2).
I wonder if this philosophy is diametrically opposed to my own feelings on how to improve schools. I’ve yet to see any established precedent of any institution reforming itself with any permanence due to the herculean efforts of…
I said this in December 2011: (1) I have bouts of dread when I realize I will have children at some point soon and I realize that my precarious balancing act will be disrupted once more because I will choose the needs of my family over my career. I hope I will make this choice…
read more »Back when I worked in the teacher certification bidness(1), I fielded more than a few calls from hapless Northsiders(2) who wanted to teach but believed they could not get hired in districts like mine because they didn’t speak Spanish. I assured them as I am assuring you now, dear reader, that you needn’t worry about…
read more »It’s been a while. To update: We had our district UIL competition. All my debate guys went 2-1 in the rounds, though only one made it to the semifinals because of points and he placed 4th. It would have been nice to see them finish higher, but I’m super proud of the work they’ve done…
read more »Tomorrow is the start of our UIL district meet. I’m getting so psyched for my debate team and they are all leaving next year and they are all AWESOME DUDES that I will miss A WHOLE BUNCH. One of them is going to college in ALASKA next year. The other two are going to RIVAL…
read more »I’m just pining. This week is Spring Break, and I will be out of town for most of the week. However, I intend to return to this and get into the regular flow of things. Lately, it’s just been…one of those months (teachers know what I’m talking about). Hasta luego.
read more »Grow a beard. You won’t look 16 anymore and you will appear thoughtful instead of nervous when you rub your face a lot. That’s all.
read more »I don’t quite know how to approach this topic, so I thought I’d make it a thread and yield to the floor. I consider myself a feminist ally but I’m fairly new to the game so I often feel helpless in making any effective headway in combating sexism at school. I want to preface this…
read more »I might’ve mentioned this before, but I am serving as my campus’ UIL coordinator this year which means I get the distinct pleasure of arranging all of our academic competitions. Coaching academic events is not wholly unlike coaching athletics in that you place your kids into a zero-sum competitive environment. It is, however, a different…
read more »One of the things that is lamentable about this job is how easy it can be to forget your former self. That is to say before you were an adult, before you knew better, you were a trifle naive or prone to emotional extremes or bouts of rebelliousness. It’s been nearly 10 years since I…
read more »
Teach For Us thanks our national sponsor for its generous support
