Monthly Archives: November 2009
Where the Wild Things Are: Teaching dance in urban schools
by RACHEL COSTELLO Teaching in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco feels like teaching in the fictional area of Baltimore from the The Wire, where drugs were made legal within a specified zone of the city. Of course, drugs aren’t … Continue reading
Filed under Classroom Reflections, Essays
The Schoolyard Foodie: Baby Got Snacks
by GEHRY OATEY To Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”: “You want to put a big girl in a real good mood/ She gotta have some food/… So fellas (Yeah), fellas (Yeah)/Do you really like your women stacked (Hell yeah)/ Then … Continue reading
Filed under Classroom Reflections, The Schoolyard Foodie
Teaching Reading and Isolation: What Are We Losing?
Is silent reading always the best kind of reading? Continue reading
Filed under Classroom Reflections
Advocating for our Students: It’s Necessary at the Policy Level Too
by JESSE SCACCIA I was reading my local paper today when I came across an interesting article. Currently schools in Virginia Beach, Virginia only give solid letter grades. The discussion involves adding in the ‘plus’ as an option. The net … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Here’s to the Home Stretch
by JESSE SCACCIA If memory serves, it was the poet-philosopher Sir Mix-a-Lot who gave us the prophetic lines: Little in the middle/but she got much back. And then, much like the sound of the Muses turning King Pierus’ daughters into … Continue reading
Filed under Essays
Movie Review: ‘Heart of Stone’: One principal’s fight to take back his school
by ALISTAIR BOMPHRAY The most striking image from Heart of Stone, the recent documentary about Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ, a school devastated by gang violence, is of principal, Ron Stone, in his office, strapping on a bullet proof … Continue reading
Filed under Essays, Movie Reviews
The Silent E Changes Everything
The most exuberant educational song ever (performed by my co-teacher’s son):
Filed under Uncategorized
When The World Sees Thug, We Must See Student
by JESSE SCACCIA As part of my teaching work in South Africa I read a book called Gangs, Politics & Dignity in Cape Town by a writer named Steffen Jensen. This is a very academic look at the coloured township … Continue reading
Getting Kids Into College: A Sisyphean Challenge
by ALISTAIR BOMPHRAY Teachers in the house—raise your hand if you’ve ever imagined yourself as some kind of Sisyphus, eternally pushing that rock up the hill and watching it roll right back down again. The myth itself seems suspiciously like … Continue reading
Filed under Classroom Reflections, Essays
How to Make Better Teachers: Let Them Teach with Their Friends?
by JESSE SCACCIA Is the reason new teachers aren’t better–and that they don’t stick–because they’re lonely? Would our schools actually be better if it the teachers were college buddies as well as professional colleagues? This is just what was proposed … Continue reading
Filed under In The News
