After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
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Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Category: classroom management
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There are several ways to get to the hilltop town of Erice. One is to take a Funivia or cable from Trapani. Another is to take a white knuckle drive and land at one of the town gates. But the third option – the one that is most enjoyable, is to stop partway to the…
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Palermo overwhelms. The traffic on main thoroughfares is a continual cacaphony of vehicles; motorized scooters appear to travel in packs. To be a pedestrian in Palermo takes some serious awareness skills. Don’t assume. Traffic may or may not look upon street-crossing pedestrians as an impediment to their journey. If there are rules or conventions for…
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To me, retirement in the modern era, is a compromise between the career you leave behind and the pursuit of meaningfulness to fill one’s days. And that, for me, is what makes Anna Mary “Grandma” Moses, an incredible story. Born in 1860, Grandma Moses didn’t begin to paint until 1938, when she reached the age…
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There has been a great deal of attention and buzz about former VP and current Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s rambling response to the education question posed at the end of last night’s debate. For the uninitiated, a record player is what we old-farts used for streaming music in our youth. Beyond the Friday morning commentary…
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Do you remember your first day of school as a child? I recently came across some photographs my mother took on our first day of school in Huron, Ohio. In one, a line-up of neighborhood children are waiting for the bus. Bus Zero – Bunky’s bus. How I can even recall those details so many…
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As almost everyone with a stake in public education knows, Massachusetts funding of Public School education is in dire need of updating. Since 1993 when Education Reform and the Foundation Budget calculations were developed, there has been little done by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to update the funding formulae and account for changes in costs…
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Did you happen upon KQED’s interview with San Francisco educator, Michael Essien, principal of MLK Middle School? If not, here’s the report which includes an audio of the story. So many of us in education feel the pressure to keep teaching the prescribed curriculum even when our students, our kids, are telegraphing their emotional response…
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Our good friend and UTL president Paul Georges shared this article with me this morning: “Is a good teacher one who makes kids happy or one who raises test scores“. If you read nothing else in this post, migrate to EdWeek and read that article. For educators, this is the question above all questions because…
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Here in the Northeast, we’ve endured some whacky weather – high winds and plenty of rain. Not exactly a hurricane, but a giant inconvenience, particularly for those without power since Sunday night. The wind damage and power outages resulted in school cancellations throughout the Merrimack Valley; some school districts are now left with just 2…
After An Educator's Journey 