It’s Friday and I’m not at work. It’s a furlough day, one of the 14 days cut from the school year in our district’s belt tightening regimen. I’ve got grading to do, but I’m not going to do it. Hell no. Instead, I’ll write about doing it. I want to conclude this part of myContinue reading “An English Teacher Doesn’t Do The Math: The Trouble With Assessment”
Tag Archives: difficult work
An English Teacher Does The Math
Teaching is like this: I can never get it right. I will never feel like I’ve mastered the craft; I am always learning it. If I think for a moment I’ve mastered it, I’m a fool. There will always be days when I feel unstoppable and totally effective followed by days when I am sureContinue reading “An English Teacher Does The Math”
Difficult Work: It’s A Good Thing They Like Me
Teachers who say that it doesn’t matter whether or not students like them have something wrong with their brains. It seems to me that one of a teacher’s greatest tools, an ace in the hole, so to speak, or, conversely, his greatest deficit, is whether or not his students like, love, or hate him. Here’sContinue reading “Difficult Work: It’s A Good Thing They Like Me”
Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better
The following is the prologue for a work in progress about—you guessed it—teaching. It may become a real book some day, I hope, or, at the very least, a series of related blog entries. Prologue Imagine, it’s August, and I am in the last few days, minutes, and moments of what we call in theContinue reading “Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better”
michael jarmer 