Today was pack-up day. It was also my first time in John Champe since that Friday in mid-March when I briefly returned to rescue the class fish. He’s doing fine, FYI.   The school was darkly lit, the hallways and bulletin boards still showing announcements and ads that were hanging there on March 12. My own letter board still had the announcement of which two classes won the PEER advisory lesson contest.  My classroom calendar was a week behind. For the sake of optics I wish it had been showing the correct date. I’m not sure why I was behind a … Continue reading Pack-Up Day

I’ve never been great at expressing — or receiving — sincere gratitude.  I’ve had my moments, though. I remember leading the teacher-appreciation-week-charge during my senior year of high school. I was president of my school’s National Honors Society (to the lasting disgust of the poindexter who ran against me), and in that capacity I had all the members choose a teacher for whom they would purchase a gift and write a note. I provided expensive chocolates and a thoughtfully written card to my teacher, a veteran member of the math department who also happened to be my current pre-calculus teacher, … Continue reading Harsh but Fair: Memories of Teacher Appreciation Week

Elizabethan music is terrible and dated. It should not be associated with Shakespeare’s plays.  A few nights ago I tried to watch a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Before the play started, period-dressed musicians performed a jaunty English folks song with recorders and harpsichords. They were talented and well rehearsed. The overall atmosphere they conjured, though, was the soundtrack to getting your glasses snapped in half by a bully. Completely out of the mood, I turned off the TV before Falstaff even wandered on-stage. Who enjoys this archaic noise? Classical music is what NPR plays as filler when … Continue reading Four hot takes about teaching and performing Shakespeare

This month PEER created an advisory lesson promoting healthy activities to help de-stress. It was a timely lesson.  I had an idea to supplement the lesson with an art component, some sort of decoration for the long stretch of while wall outside my classroom. A few weeks ago I brought to school a two-foot by six-foot piece of plywood that was taking up space in my garage. “Here’s your canvas,” I told the students. “What should be painted on it?”   I further qualified the instructions — the art had to relate to the healthy activities theme of our lesson, … Continue reading Mural

This year Alyson Mullee and I started what I hope will be a new tradition for ever speech and forensics meet: commemorative student-crafted buttons. Forensics requires constant practice; the tournaments are always on Saturdays, often a long ways from home. A keepsake helps boost morale, and in a way helps legitimize the effort. My talented students have done an amazing job designing them over the course of the school year… This button, designed by seniors Andrew Reeder and Millie Morris, commemorated our first meet of the forensics season at Woodrow Wilson High School in D.C. At the last minute the … Continue reading Forensics Buttons, Annotated

The stated goal of my two-week Julius Caesar unit in AP Language and Composition was to further students’ skills in rhetorical analysis. But there was also hidden goal. I wanted students to complete the unit (which ended right before Thanksgiving break) with an appreciation of Shakespeare. I wanted students to enjoy reading Shakespeare. I had a plan to achieve this.  I formulated this plan by compiling input from my students, most of whom could not have been more resistant to the unit. When I hinted that we would be reading Shakespeare, they groaned. I teach two sections of AP Lang … Continue reading Glory by this losing day

A few weeks ago I began to notice these angular paper wedges lodged in the school’s drop ceiling. I’m not sure exactly when it started, but it seemed to coincide with the clocks changing and the weather turning colder. They were easy enough to miss if you weren’t looking up. But once I started paying attention, I realized they were everywhere.  In the cafeteria… In the English hallway… In my classroom!  Several times this week I’ve picked up dislodged ceiling darts (that’s what the youth call them) from the floor. Every time it reminds me of my childhood when we’d … Continue reading Darts for dart’s sake

John Champe High School’s third annual Poetry Out Loud finals took place last Thursday. The contest is a nationally-sponsored high school contest structured like a spelling bee, where instead of spelling words students are reciting (previously published) poems.    There are a lot of folks who deserve credit for helping make the night a success….  -Aylssa Russell and Alyson Mullee, two of the four teachers in our English department who participated in the event this year with their classes. Without their participation over the past month, the event wouldn’t have happened. They deserve praise (along with Peter Kim, who did it … Continue reading Poetry Out Loud reflections

I saw my first Swivl a year ago during a professional development session, and was thoroughly creeped out by it. The device itself looked unassuming, an iPad nestled in a small bowl-shaped device mounted atop a tripod, so bland-looking that I barely noticed it when I entered the room. Then the session began. As the instructor began moving about the room, I heard beside me a faint robotic whirring. The iPad wasn’t just statically recording her presentation — it was tracking her movements around the room as she presented her lecture, keeping her centered in the frame of the recording … Continue reading Head on a Swivl

My cousin, a state dairy inspector, can look at a Holstein for one minute and accurately assess the cow’s age, health, and profitability. I have acquired a slightly different skill: I can look at a student for one second and tell if he or she is going to ask me for a letter of recommendation.   I’ve gained the skill through experience. This fall has been filled with requests, mostly from my former AP Language and Composition. They smile nervously, make brief attempts at pleasantries. Then they broach the question,  always with the exact same phrasing: “So…I was wondering…”. They drag … Continue reading Man of Letters