On the Very Last Work Day of the School Year It began with a breakfast during which we said tearful goodbyes to beloved colleagues retiring or moving on, a difficult, but joyful thing, wanting them to stay but wishing them well and happy returns for all they’ve done for our school and our kids. WeContinue reading “#41: On the Very Last Work Day of the School Year”
Tag Archives: teaching
#39: On the End of the School Year
On the End of the School Year It’s always a cluster, unnatural and awkward in every way, but mostly for teachers, or maybe just for teachers like yourself, English teachers with too many students, too much grading, not enough time to get it done, or, at least, to do it well, speeding through, losing sleep,Continue reading “#39: On the End of the School Year”
#36: On Teaching Vietnam
On Teaching Vietnam We have read Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War and now we’re watching a film called Regret To Inform, a documentary inspired by Barbara Sonneborn’s personal quest, twenty years after the fact, to come to terms with her husband’s death in Vietnam, to go there to that country, to try to understand where,Continue reading “#36: On Teaching Vietnam”
#32: Gatsby? What Gatsby?
Gatsby? What Gatsby? is what Daisy says when she hears Jordan Baker mention the name to Nick, and it’s what teenagers used to say before they knew Leonardo DiCaprio was starring in the new Baz Luhrmann film. Suddenly, now, they want to read this novel because they recognize the name and because Leonardo is starring inContinue reading “#32: Gatsby? What Gatsby?”
#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken
Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken I know! I have an idea: Let’s pretend the schoolhouse is broken even though we know it’s not so that a tiny number of thinkers and bureaucrats, of which I am one, can invent and impose new rigorous standards on educators and students (because certainly those educators and studentsContinue reading “#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken”
#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters
The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters They’re just making stuff up. Here’s one that says that Li Po was Wang Wei’s evil twin, his doppelgänger, or that the two poets were, in fact, the same guy, a sort of Jeckyl and Hyde affair. Here’s another that says Li Po was drunkContinue reading “#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters”
#5: Friday Irony
I know I said I wanted to take a break from writing about teaching, but today was kind of a frustrating day and I couldn’t help myself. This is a poem called a cinquain, apparently, because the stanza or stanzas are all 5 lines long. The form also has to follow a specific syllabic countContinue reading “#5: Friday Irony”
Of Furlough Days
I’ve been laid off today with all of the employees of my school district, and, by proxy, all of the students in my school district. The school doors are locked. Do not enter. Sorry, we are temporarily closed. We do not have enough money in the coffers to pay for a full school year, soContinue reading “Of Furlough Days”
Of English Teacher Math: Teaching 200 Students How To Write
Here are some numbers to consider for the end of the semester. I asked 140 IB English students to turn in their logs, into which they have composed over the last 4 weeks anywhere between 20 and 30 pages of response to the readings we’ve done out of The Best American Essays of the Century. Let’s justContinue reading “Of English Teacher Math: Teaching 200 Students How To Write”
Of School Reform and The Common Core
So here we are in the midst of another school reform movement. Here’s a funny thing. I’ve worked as a high school English teacher for about twenty-four years now, and while I consider myself progressive, forward thinking, willing to try new things, and while I feel confident that, in actual practice, I do progressive, forwardContinue reading “Of School Reform and The Common Core”
michael jarmer 