Today, I was actually afraid for my life. Let me preface this with a little back story. Yesterday was an insane day at the school. Three false fire alarms, so by the end of the day nobody was evacuating the building anymore. Fire engine keeps screaming down the road, costing us hundreds of dollars and…

This morning my friend whom I met on a study abroad trip in China randomly emailed me to ask if I remembered one of the places we visited. “Last night I was laying in bed listening to the traffic noise outside and I remembered that we had gone somewhere in China where it was absolutely…

Yesterday was the real deal. I knew my principal was planning something for teacher appreciation week, but I had no idea how extravagant it was going to be. First, I find out that she hired her personal masseuse to come give 10-minute massages to us in the teacher’s lounge. The lounge was converted into a…

ATTENTION ALL MATH & SCIENCE TEACHERS! I have fallen in love with paperless teaching and wanted to share some of the resources I have created over the past two years. Let me start with a caveat: you will need access to enough computers for your students. I’m lucky enough to have a computer lab that…

It is National Teacher Appreciation Week, which ideally shouldn’t be just a week but a prolonged sense of appreciation for teachers throughout the entire school year. Nah, scratch that — I just wish I could get some consistent respect. And that they would do most of their work when I give it to them instead…

It’s strange, but one of the things I will hate most about leaving this job is the worry that all of the resources I’ve made for this job won’t be used by anyone. I’ve written three curricula for chemistry, physics, and music (funny thing – last summer when I was asking the new music teacher…

This year has been rife with struggles with a new, very different group of students, a new schedule, and issues with some of my less than competent colleagues. But enough of that. It’s April, there are less than two months left in this year, which means I am less than two months away from ending…

Today I discovered the importance of changing the routine up every now and then, and opening the doors to my students’ curiosity. First, I announced the very first science fair at my school. I was cringing and waiting for the backlash (“Why we gotta do this? This school be doin’ too much!”), but what I…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mostly because the year has been like it started with very little variation – the job has lost a lot of its novelty. Before winter break, I felt like I had lost some of my drive to improve. In some ways, I had, because after being in this…

I’m angry with my students. It’s the end of the first quarter, and half of them are failing. It’s not that I’ve changed the way I teach (if anything I’m much better than I was at this point last year), it’s not that I’ve changed the way I grade, and it’s not that my tests…