Another Sat. AM reflection on teaching, perhaps one of the last?
I wonder how many more of these I will write? It could be this series comes soon enough to an end. After all, my last day in the classroom with students is June 6th. That Saturday I will be at Netroots Nation, although since my panel on what Progressives Can Do to Save Public Education is the day before, I will certainly have something on which to reflect. Two weeks before that I will be at the 45th reunion of my original class at Haverford College, and might instead be reflecting on this. Thus pure ordinary classroom based reflections? There are two more Saturdays after this.
After all, I leave my classroom for good when I check on on Monday June 11. Already the process of moving towards that has begun. My instruction of new material has effectively already come to close - my AP students take their AP test on May 15, so now we are involved in review. For my two regular classes, we can explore other topics - for the past two days we watched a film on one of the most important pieces of legislation ever, the World War II era original GI Bill, which helped create the American middle class.
In one sense I offered a bit of my reflection early last night, when I posted As a teacher, I want to thank Charles M. Blow in response to reading his Saturday column in praise of teachers.
But never fear, I still have some more thoughts to share.
After all, I leave my classroom for good when I check on on Monday June 11. Already the process of moving towards that has begun. My instruction of new material has effectively already come to close - my AP students take their AP test on May 15, so now we are involved in review. For my two regular classes, we can explore other topics - for the past two days we watched a film on one of the most important pieces of legislation ever, the World War II era original GI Bill, which helped create the American middle class.
In one sense I offered a bit of my reflection early last night, when I posted As a teacher, I want to thank Charles M. Blow in response to reading his Saturday column in praise of teachers.
But never fear, I still have some more thoughts to share.
As a teacher, I want to thank Charles M. Blow
for his New York Times column for Saturday, now available. It is titled Teaching Me About Teaching, written, well, let me offer his introduction:
Next week is National Teacher Appreciation Week, and, as far as I’m concerned, they don’t get nearly enough.He knows from up close what teaching is like - his mother taught for 34 years, retired and then volunteered, and at age 67 got elected to her local school board.
Education is in her blood.Through her I saw up close that teaching is one of those jobs you do with the whole of you — trying to break through to a young mind can break your heart. My mother cared about her students