The first full-time teaching position I had was at Ironton Elementary School, in Ironton, Pennsylvania. After receiving my Masters in Elementary Ed, I was the full-time aide to an autistic student my first year out of grad school and the next year I got my own classroom. I taught 6th grade in a self-contained classroom, […]
teachers
A Big F*cking Thank You
Dear Teachers, In this era of Common Core and parents who don’t fucking get it and testing pressure and all the other bullshit that makes your job really frustrating and thankless and oftentimes, nearly impossible, I just wanted to let you know something. We have six kids attending public schools this year. We have a […]
To My Kids’ Teachers
This year we have a kindergartener, first grader, second grader, fifth grader, sixth grader, and high school senior. We’ve got at least one kid in each school in the district. And each of those six kids is different. Some are strong students, some are not so strong. Some are well behaved, some are not so […]
Education is all about customer service. And the service here kind of sucks.
Eighteen years ago I got a 4th grade teaching position in a fairly wealthy and extremely competitive school district in Fairfield County, CT. I had just moved back to Connecticut from Pennsylvania where I had been teaching for five years. After the principal offered me the job, I was sent to meet with the Assistant Superintendent. […]
I live in the Land Of The Free, and that’s the way I’m going to parent.
This morning I went for a run. And being the 4th of July, Independence Day, I was thinking about this holiday. I was thinking about how one of the greatest things about this country is that we have freedom. And then as I was running I started thinking about how, in this country where we have […]
Your kid isn’t the best. And it’s okay to be honest with them about that.
I was a kid in the seventies, and I graduated from high school in the eighties. It was the era of Simon and Atari and the Sony Sports Walkman and boomboxes and floppy discs. If you wanted to “tape” your favorite song, you sat next to the radio with a tape recorder for an hour waiting for […]