personal
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There are Worse Things than Dropping Out of School
Craig Althof over at In Pursuit of Excellence emailed me the other day with an article from CNN about “dropout prevention programs” in the United States, including the America’s Promise Alliance’s program, which is chaired by Gen. Colin Powell. The introduction to the article focuses on dropout prevention “foot soldiers” (a coordinator and a police Continue reading
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professional development meme 2009
I’ve been tagged by Tracy Rosen; thanks Tracy! This meme recently appeared on Clif’s Notes. Directions: Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s Continue reading
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What’s to Like about School?
Did you like school? (Or, if you’re a student now, do you?) I’m reading Daniel T. Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School? It’s totally readable and very interesting, and I’ll post a review when I’m done. (I’ve also joined a reading group to discuss it, over at Dangerously Irrelevant; if you’ve been wanting to pick Continue reading
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Who Are Your Gurus?
This week has been an exercise in detachment. I’ve been grading very long and sometimes very difficult final papers, and in a moment of hair-tearing frustration, wrote the post 10 Reasons I Hate Grading Your Assignment. When it went up here and, especially, on my Open Salon blog, there was an outpouring of hilarity, with Continue reading
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10 Reasons I Hate Grading Your Assignment
10. You don’t double-space. You KNOW that I take formatting points off when you don’t double-space. Double-space does NOT mean space-and-a-half. We’ve discussed this. 9. Your printer ink is not black. You KNOW that I take formatting points off when you print in blue, purple or green. You also know that if your print is Continue reading
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post #2 at School Gate: how I saved my teaching career
The second in my series of posts for School Gate, the TimesOnline education blog, is now up. The series is called “How I Saved My Teaching Career,” and this post’s topic is “Take Stock: Is Teaching Worth It?” Please go read and comment, and link/forward freely! The more attention these posts get, the happier the Continue reading
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first I take the Times…
I am utterly, utterly stoked to announce that my first guest blogging gig is with School Gate, the TimesOnline (that’s right, folks, the Times of London) education blog. Sarah Ebner generously asked me to sign up. I’ll be writing a series of posts on overcoming teacher burnout and learning to love teaching again. You will Continue reading
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If You Use This Phrase in Your Essay, You Will Fail
10. “In today’s modern society…” (this is the first line in 25% of the essays I read) 9. The designation “Old English” used to describe expressions as diverse as “codpiece” and “groovy.” 8. “In my humble opinion, I believe that…” 7. “Different,” as in, “This story was really different.” 6. “In the following paragraphs, I Continue reading
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School vs. the Real World
Today I came across a post called “‘Meaningful’ School-to-Career” on the blog In Pursuit of Excellence. The blogger asks, Schools provide young people with a solid academic foundation to build the rest of their lives on. But schools are also supposed to prepare students for the real world….How can the real adult world they will Continue reading
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would you read this book?
I’m putting together a proposal for a memoir based on material from this blog. What do you think? Siobhan Curious Falls In Love Again: Project Description Since August 2007, I have been keeping a pseudonymous blog called “Siobhan Curious,” which details and reflects upon my classroom experiences as a CEGEP teacher. The blog has a Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 