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School Is Too Easy
This week, I’m featuring posts from five students who have shared their thoughts on what they would, if they could, change about school. Today’s post is from Emily. Her take? School should be more of a challenge. * I’m a high school student at a nationally acclaimed magnet school. I go there because my home… Continue reading
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Here’s What I’d Change About School
Dear readers: There are some exciting developments happening at Classroom as Microcosm. The last week has seen a major uptick in traffic, not least because a recent post, Fail Better, was chosen as a WordPress Freshly Pressed feature and so attracted a whole bunch of new followers and, at last count, 228 comments – welcome… Continue reading
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What is the Deal With Class Size?
Does class size really make a difference? Frequent commenters Gen X and Army Amy have asked me to give you my thoughts on class size and its effect on learning. Early in this blog’s life, I wrote a post on class size, in which I assert that I believe that if every class in the… Continue reading
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What Do Students Think Should Change About School?
This is a call out to students. Whether you’re in primary, middle or high school, whether you’re a college undergrad or a postdoctoral fellow, I’d like to hear your opinion. What do you think should change about school? My friend Gen X has asked me to put this question out there. She’s interested in students’… Continue reading
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The Problem With Desire Paths
I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about “desire paths” lately, and I don’t like where the talk is going. Tony Baldusaro tells a charming story about desire paths: officials at Disney World were upset about customers scarring the lawns by cutting across them instead of sticking to the sidewalks. They asked Walt Disney how… Continue reading
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Pearls of Wisdom to Offer Students About Writing
There are five things that Rob Jenkins tells his composition students every semester. “If you think you won’t have to write anymore once you’re done with your English classes, you need to think again.” “If you think you’re going to be done with writing when you get out of college, you need to think again.”… Continue reading
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Cold Call
Are you willing to put your students on the spot? A reader, Damommachef, has asked me to discuss a problem that can arise with classroom dynamics: the Constant Commenter. She says, “Some kids want to constantly comment, but the smartest are often the quietest. How can we get them more involved? How do we subdue… Continue reading
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What Do You See When You Look at Your Job?
Sometimes I feel like I’m so far inside my job, I don’t even see it. This is one way a blog makes itself useful. I put pieces of my job in here, and later, I can take them out and look at them. A few days ago, I came across one of my old posts,… Continue reading
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What If They Don’t Do the Required Reading?
It’s a perennial problem for teachers. You plan a great lesson around today’s short story, but it turns out two-thirds of the students haven’t read it. What do you do? Do you kick out the slackers? Give them class time to read it? Give up and do something else? As a follow-up to last week’s… Continue reading
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Willing to Read and Write
Yesterday, I told my college students that they need to read the next 150 pages of the novel we are studying, Life of Pi, over the next seven days. This is not news – they got a reading schedule on the first day of class, and were told to read ahead. Nevertheless, there was 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 