Forensics Journal: Part II

PART I 

Thursday, January 18Only day of school this week. Most of the morning spent rescheduling the event tomorrow in light of the forecast. Emailing students and judges and making sure everyone is aware. Trying to determine how many students we will lose to scheduling conflicts next week. 

Monday, January 22Arrive at school early, refreshed and ready to start the week. Only at 9:00 do I start to realize that I’m the only soul in the English hallway. Where the hell is everyone? I check the schedule. End-of-the-quarter planning day. How do you like that?  

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My Cliché Collection

A verbal river rock, worn smooth from use. 

Today I have something to share with you. Where some people collect rocks, I collect and categorize the clichés specific to my job in education. I am not referring to clichés instructors use in the classroom – students already do a good enough job identifying these. I am referring to those that are heard amongst teachers/education professors/administrators. 

Please gather round as we examine my collection (put together over the past semester with the help of a few friends in the biz). Some of them we will pass around and appreciate for their timeworn beauty. Others, due to their crimes against original thought and/or their implied ideas, will be skipped blithely across the water to sink into obscurity.

These rulings are final and not subject to appeal, thanks. 

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These are a few of my favorite things (at Woodgrove)

I’ve been listening to different renditions of “My Favorite Things” —  the Coltrane version, the Julie Andrews version, a version I’m playing with science teacher Mr. Looney on mandolin, a version my wife recorded a few years ago. Given the lyrics, I started thinking of some soul-affirming places and objects at work I might reference in my own rendition of the song.

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Glows and grows from the first quarter

Glows

This is some of the stuff that went well — skip if you’re here to revel in my failures.

Journals: I compiled journal entries into a booklet that I kept in the classroom. Students took them more seriously than any prior journal system I had used, knowing that they had been prepared carefully and would be read with scrutiny. Q2 journals will refine skills from Q1. 

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