January 2012
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A former student was shot and killed this weekend
She was a very difficult child, but she didn’t deserve this. She was but one of many shooting deaths in North Philly so far this calendar year.
What a scary, sad week for that community.
November 2011
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DJ Drama Visits Atlanta Middle School →
So here’s a funny fact: the head of my grad program at Penn is DJ Drama’s mother. She was a 30+ year veteran of the School District of Philadelphia is still one of the coolest ladies ever. Looks like she raised her son right!
October 2011
9 posts
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Strategies for Test Anxiety?
world-shaker:
iamlittlei:
Tumblr teachers—anyone have any good strategies for helping older students (late high school/early college) deal with severe test anxiety? Reply/reblog/submit if you have advice to share!
Signal Boost.
Stereotype threat was something I came across once in an article about a year ago—if I was still teaching, I think a text on this could be a valuable piece to...
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Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we... →
kateoplis:
For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That’s equality of...
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September 2011
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August 2011
1 post
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July 2011
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Tales From School: before. →
talesfromschool:
August 2005
Sitting in a district training which is supposed to set me up for success in the classroom. So far we have learned to always have a Do Now, that kids love vocabulary review games, and that it’s imperative to build relationships with your students. Copious time has been set aside for…
I am starting a blog about my time in teaching. I’ve accrued enough...
June 2011
2 posts
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NBC Education Nation Teacher Town Hall →
Hey Philadelphia residents,
Turn on NBC at 1pm today—you just might catch a peep of me in the audience :) I will be there with other people from my school. One of them will be on a panel!
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May 2011
5 posts
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Black Students, White Teachers: Trouble in... →
The subject of this article is a friend of mine. I’ve been following this whole drama unfold through his posts on Facebook. He quit a job at Goldman Sachs and left his native New York to teach in the Mississippi Delta through Teach For America; he still works with the students in that small town despite his two-year contract being long over. The last time he was in Philly, I asked him...
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The Committee of Seventy →
There’s really nothing like last-minute research of city candidates to get you all jaded and bitter, is there?
Last fall I figure that after being in Philly for five years, it didn’t look like I was going to up and move at any point, so I should probably start voting in something other than just presidential elections. I’m woefully ignorant of how state and city governments...
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April 2011
4 posts
countcenci asked: What drugs are you on tonight, and can I have some?
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“From the genocidal practices inflicted on Native Americans (my father’s people)...”
– America’s Escape from Knowing (via azspot)
Reblog for the importance of context
March 2011
5 posts
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Cleveland, TX
When I was eleven years old, I had only had sex ed the year before. During recess, I jumped rope or played foursquare with my friends. After school, I would attend play practice; I was nervous because there was a scene where I had to kiss a seventh-grader in front of everyone. When I was eleven, I began getting dropped off at the mall to window-shop with my friends but my dad still took us to...
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February 2011
10 posts
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countcenci asked: Do you think Suckers, TV on the Radio, Yeasayer, Dirty Projectors etc are really just the same group of people fucking with everyone in New York? As a tangent to that. When are we gonna hang? You were noticeably absent when I was going to house parties in Philly and freaking out kids with my sober proclamations about Kant. They thought I was talking about cunt, and said I was crass. Which is...
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Because when you’re an optimist, you are...
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Vocab Word: attribute
meaningfulsentences:
My friend has great attributes; for example, he he can fit his whole hand in his mouth, and he is nice.
I am pretty sure you should follow this blog, regardless of whether or not you teach, like kids, or enjoy reading vocabulary homework.
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I went viral last weekend →
Last weekend, my friend Wing and I drove down to DC for the Teach For America Alumni Summit. It was massively inspiring and overwhelming and illuminating—John Legend performed several times, and I got to sit in on panels with Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Geoffrey Canada, Malcolm Gladwell, Gloria Steinem, John Lewis, James Carville, and Amanda Ripley, among others.
However, I think my...
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January 2011
3 posts
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Timeless Classics
britticisms:
At the end of A Gate at the Stairs, our narrator says, “Reader, I did not even have coffee with him,” a variation on a common phrase which, after 23 years, I prefer to read as “Girl, I did not even have coffee with him,” thus solidifying my relationship with the protagonist of the story. It’s like we had just been talking smack for the past 200 pages, an activity I partake in only...
December 2010
7 posts
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In Freud's classic theory, erotic energy is... →
This is why people need to be taught to interpret works of art.
I should force myself to sublimate more when I’m irkin’
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Ce Weekend: December 12th-14th, 2010
I went on a brewpub barcrawl in the freezing weather for a friend’s birthday. At one point, I looked around and was like, “Man, this is really great, all these people coming out for the night. Someone should plan a barcrawl for every weekend.” And then I remembered that I used to do this when I was twenty-two, but I just called it “Friday night.”
I wish more...
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Tales From School, #27: Rites of Passage
[SCENE: The school's internship coordinator has taken five young men into the hallway to teach them how to put on a tie for their impending interviews.]
Student: So what you're saying is this will be a lot easier if I don't do it over my hoodie?
Teacher: Um, yeah, pretty much.
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My sister is going on a Birthright trip. Our...
Sister: Well, it's interesting. If you are half-Jew, and it's your dad, they just ask you if you think of yourself as Jewish or not and if you think of yourself as having jewish identity. Even if you haven't had a bat mitzvah. I mean, they asked me if I was involved in anything like, Jew clubs, Jewish anything. Did I ever observe the Holy Days, etc.
Me: "I directed Fiddler on the Roof? I lived across from the campus Hillel for 2 yrs? I've had Manischevitz before? I love Woody Allen?"
Sister: I can't believe i'm going to be in Israel in a week. Also, isn't it Hannukah?
Me: HAHAHAHA. You crappy Jew. First of all, it's Hanukkah. Second of all, that jawn gonna be over before you get there. It started last week.
Sister: Yeah, I'm a sucky Jew. I don't want to get called out on my lack of Jew knowledge.
Me: Make up what you got for Hanukkah now and how many friends of yours threw latke parties. Get your story right, now!
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Ce Weekend: December 3rd-5th, 2010
I saw Warpaint at Making Time on Friday night; I think they are best experienced in a more intimate setting (how cliche, but there it is) like the first time I saw them. Unfortunately, they are pretty talented, so I doubt you will have many more opportunities to catch them in such a venue. I haven’t been to a Making Time in probably two years now—the last one I went to may have...
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Should Teachers Be Trained More Like Doctors? →
girlwithalessonplan:
positivelypersistantteach:
thingsforteachers:
world-shaker:
A new report released yesterday from a panel convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) says teachers need to be trained in a model more akin to doctors going through residency—a sort of collaborative apprenticeship with more experienced instructors that offers clinical...