This was one of my best years teaching. Thank you to my students, colleagues, contributors, and donors. You’ve made teaching fun again.
This is also the first year I’ve written consistently about my teaching. I’m grateful to all the Iserotope readers out there for being interested in learning more about my random thoughts.
The past few days, I’ve been in a reflective mood, so I’ve looked back at some posts. Here are my favorite five posts of the year (in no particular order). Take a look if you’re interested!
1. Your homework is due tonight.
Why have your homework due at the beginning of class when it can be due the night before? Isn’t homework supposed to be done at home, anyway? Although my students protested against this new policy, they turned in a higher percentage of homework on time when it was due at night.
2. “I’m still here.”
I battled with a student the first semester. She thought I was doing too much. I thought she was doing too little. But then one Sunday in February, this student asked for help online, and I didn’t let go.
3. CCSA’s public call for charter school closures is wrong.
My school nearly closed this year because a state charter school association sent out a mean-spirited memo. This post analyzes the association’s faulty reasoning and ridiculous logic. Luckily, our District saw through it all and unanimously renewed our school’s charter in February.
4. Donate your old Kindle to my classroom!
This is the tiny post that started the Kindle donation deluge. Who would have thought that 100 words would yield 10 Kindles and 130 e-books? I was blown away by the generous donors who believe strongly in reading and my students. Iserotope readers contributed a total of more than $3,000 to my classroom this year. Sure, I taught my heart out, but you need high-quality materials in order to teach well. Plus, kids like stuff.
5. “He used to hate reading.”
As a society, we really believe that young people don’t like to read. This is just false. If we give students choice in what they read, and if we give them time to read, students will read and will enjoy reading. This post was just one of the many reading transformation stories that occurred this year. As a teacher, there are few things better than witnessing a student getting re-hooked on reading.
Do you have a favorite post that I missed? Please share it! And thank you again for a great year.
Thanks for sharing. You are inspiring and a fantastic writer. Lots of people are inspiring, few can write with your clarity and elegance. Great work.
Chris
Thank you, Chris! I just checked your website, and I’m impressed by your work with 3D Baseball. Let’s talk soon about your next teaching assignment!
I remember each of those posts. You run a great blog.
John, thank you for reading my blog and for all the thoughtful comments. I appreciate your support a lot.
Hi, catching up. I remember three of these. I Pocket the other two!