I’ve previously written about my years as a Little League coach. That first year I learned a lot but the greatest moment — and the greatest lesson — involved a 12-year-old boy named Shawn. He was a late addition to the team, not part of the hilarious draft. When you would get a phone call …
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Week in Review (March 26-February 1)
It promised to be a super challenging week with lots of stressful and big responsibilities. I almost felt like things would slip away from me, but on the whole it was one of the best weeks of the year. I was able to get to the gym each weekday, something I hadn’t been doing thus …
When Discrimination Is A-Okay
Students always react to the word “discrimination” as a negative thing because they’ve been conditioned to do so. They typically don’t realize that the word is not inherently evil. Sure, if you say “racial discrimination,” that tends to be hard to justify, but the generic definition of the word is “recognition and understanding of the …
Student Council Advisor?!?
My first year of teaching was a pretty solid success overall. The biggest challenge was classroom management in my freshman World History/Cultures classes. I like to joke around with students and that created a really positive atmosphere… but also was seen as permission for them to get super goofy. I would enjoy that, but when …
New Jersey’s Mock Trial Scoring Rules Make a Mockery of Evaluation
Now don’t get me wrong: I love Mock Trial. Some of my favorite memories and closest student relationships over the years come from the activity. I don’t think there’s a more academically challenging and rigorous activity in high school (at least on the liberal arts side of things). But there is one enormous problem that …
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Talk… with Greg Pardlo (From March 15, 2019)
I’ve published 21 straight weeks of interviews with people and have eleven interviews in process, but no new one ready for today. So for those of you who don’t have time to watch an hour long video, but might be interested in reading my interview with the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Gregory Pardlo, today is …
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AP Gov: The Power Grab Game
As a member of a Facebook group of AP US Government and Politics teachers, I have access to a voluminous shared drive of resources. Sometimes I dip my toe in and find something of particular worth, even though I am often averse to using someone else’s work. It is exceedingly rare for me to use …
Rutgers Graduate School of Education
When I was a junior in college, I suddenly realized I didn’t want to go to grad school for history. The notion of being a publish-or-perish professor scared the daylights out of me, and my relationship with my Little Brother and Little League coaching gave me the notion of becoming a teacher instead. I visited …
Week in Review (January 19-25, 2020)
Three-day weekend makes for a short week, but a challenging one since I had my first cold in a long time. Sunday/Monday – I had done a ton of work on Saturday focusing on the upcoming Harvard Case Method activity with AP Government and the Visual Essay in-school field trip for US I Honors, but …
Guest Blogger: Ailyn Del Rio, HHS 2020
Ailyn Del Rio quickly became one of my favorite students two years ago with a relentlessly positive attitude and consistently terrific work. I remember her pitching the idea of her essay to me and thinking, “This is exactly why this project is so important.” Her final paper nailed the task at hand and serves as …
Fenster on Education 