I’m teaching a dual-enrollment freshman composition course through NVCC, the local community college. The course lets high-school seniors take the introductory college English courses in place of typical “English 12.” We’re fortunate enough to be working in a computer lab, so I asked the students to set up Google accounts and work with [...]

While preparing for my next class session, I re-read John Taylor Gatto’s 1990 “New York City Teacher of the Year” acceptance speech. It’s worth re-reading regularly. It angers, frustrates, depresses, and inspires me. It scares me, too … scared for myself, for our students, for our future. I think we [...]

A quick round-up of Halloween-related pop-culture worthy of attention …
I recently finished reading Nicholas Rogers’ Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night–a slim, well-written text that still manages to cover a wide range of topics and provide tons of interesting facts and figures. For example, Halloween is actively celebrated by 65% of adults who spend [...]

Doug Noon is talking about reform and merit-based pay on his blog today. I’ve been exchanging a few brief comments with TMAO about merit-based pay in connection with NCLB. I found the Eduwonkette post that Doug referenced to be helpful in thinking about this issue. The discussion in comparison with other professions [...]

It’s been an interesting couple of years for me, wading around in the online education discussions. I’m wondering, though, if we’re making any progress toward genuine reform (beyond what the cool tech tools are and how they can be used … or sharing lesson plans and personal experiences).
It seems to me that substantial progress [...]

If you’re an Edgar Allan Poe enthusiast or a fan of Matthew Pearl (The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow), this article in The New York Observer might be of interest. Did Poe die of a tumor? Drink always sounded most plausible to me, and the rabies thing was just a cheap way to go for [...]