Out of Context

Maxine Greene , in Teaching: The Question of Personal Reality  (1978) - challenges teachers to recollect and remember why they got into teaching in the first place - assuming it was for more than the then (and now) focus on efficiency and bureaucracy (but I wonder if it holds true for those that enter for coaching purposes, as is often the case in my social studies experience).   Pulling together memories from the past to once more feel the motivation and passion to teach can provide helpful guidance as they recall the personal reality of their classrooms - developing a self awareness that serves their ability to challenge the status quo. See, it's possible that, after starting to teach, one may forget the original drive and overall purpose of school and instead focus on running an efficient classroom that is orderly and neat, at the expense of student learning.  Teachers become consumed by the observed limits and bureaucratic demands of schooling.   Its ...

I like separate benches - versatility! I have a few more musings that relate – in some way – to the rest of this chapter – though it has been long enough due to finals and end of semester work and now the start of summer that I should probably take another trip through the chapter before I move on.  I must apologize for the delay – I have also been moving into my house at the speed of a turtle and the joy of arranging and rearranging my tools and rediscovering items I haven’t seen in 15 years has been fun - and building some picnic tables.  I found my old Force Field Button – its like the Staples “That was Easy” button, but this one says Force Field and plays the Imperial March from Star Wars when you hit it.  I used to use it when students would ask too many questions or overwhelm me all at once at my desk or podium.  It was – soothing.   Unpacking is a fun chance to reminisce as well as purge – does this movie ticket to see Dodgeball sti...

Ville To Ville: 2019: Already Signed up for 2020 Mom and Sister: BOSSES I started this blog two years ago to document my marathon training for the 2018 Flying Pig - and any educational thoughts or stories I had while doing said training I was going to write down.  If you go looking for theses posts you will find nothing.  Nada.  Zip, zilch - zero .  They do not exist because I never actually wrote any.  I had every intention - I even started one.  I deleted it.  I eventually went on to answer the age old question - "can Aaron run for over 5 hours straight?"  The answer, is a resounding yes.  Also - I totally got a sniper picture of myself with my sister and mom finishing the race.  Awesome and . . . *shudder.*  It was fun!  I don’t delete posts any more – instead spend a little time tidying them up before I just let them hang out there in Internet, hoping they either get better with age or fi...