Moving Day

Starting today, I can be found here. I'll be updating a little more (hopefully) and adding some focus. See you soon.

Wow

I'm unfortunately just beginning to pay the appropriate amount of attention to education reform, so I will leave the commentary to the experts. I'm linking to this post without comment. Eduwonk writes

Here’s a proposed bill in Maine:

“A salary of a teacher may not be based upon the measurable performance or productivity of the teacher or a student of the teacher.”

Gosh, why would anyone be reticent about investing a lot of public money in a system like that? Now I don’t know anyone who thinks a teacher’s entire salary should be based on outcomes, but some how about some component? A little? A tiny bit? None? Seriously?

Lowboy

Just started Lowboy by John Wray.

Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Today is officially Pi Day, although we celebrated at school yesterday. Before I started teaching I never would have believed an 8th grader could recite 300 digits of Pi. Yesterday afternoon "J" proved me wrong. I also didn't think I would ever "celebrate" Pi Day but, sure enough, I did.

As part of our "celebration" of Pi Day, the student in each advisory that memorized the most digits won the opportunity to throw a pie at their (favorite) teacher. At least that's what I am telling myself. I am a 32 year old male first year 6th and 8th grade teacher in an inner-city school who runs a pretty tight ship. I didn't stand a chance. And sure enough, I didn't even make it through the 6th grade. It was a humbling and hilarious moment. I can still smell the cheap whipped cream in my beard. Thank god for the teacher happy hour last night.

The Stuff That Keeps Me Up at Night

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this public service announcement:

It's not education, it's not history, it's this. By far, Simon's piece is the best thing I have read in a long time about the media dying. I stole this from the great Fredeeky.

Now back to your show...

Plan B

Last week's This American Life reminded me why I started blogging in the first place - to document my thoughts, reactions, and observations during this first year in the classroom. I'm going to spend the next few months doing just that.

Naturally, this brings me to last week. On Thursday, I accompanied 20 7th and 8th graders to the Alvin Alley American Dance Theater in Midtown Manhattan. As a charter school, we have an amazing network of supporters. This trip was arranged by the Robin Hood Foundation and a lot of employees from Burberry helped out. It was an incredible afternoon and watching our students give 100% in the dance studio was well worth the trip into Manhattan.

On Friday, I joined our 5th grade writing teacher ice skating in Prospect Park with 10 "VIPs" from the 5th grade. It's incredible spending time with students I don't teach. The difference between an 8th grader (and even 6th) and a 5th grader is palpable. 8th graders are a little too cool for school, whereas 5th graders couldn't be happier hanging with a teacher after school, falling on the ice, and just be kids all afternoon.

Finally, Friday night I played in a tennis tournament supporting scholarships for kids to play tennis in Prospect Park. It's a great cause and one I hope to write more about in the future.

I should mention that before Thursday I had never taken a dance class in my entire life, and before Friday I had never been on ice skates. So yes, my life is a lot different these days.

Excess

I'm not an art critic, I don't have any degrees in the subject, and my knowledge is pretty much limited to a few survey classes in college and a lot of trips to museums. That said, I caught the preview of the Martin Kippenberger retrospective at MOMA this weekend. Kind of loved a lot of it. One highlight was the installation the Happy End of Franz Kafka's Amerika. Images and an explanation won't do it justice.