I don’t mean to imply that this video fits the generally accepted definition of propaganda; I don’t find anything particularly biased or misleading. Instead, I applaud the Common Core State Standard Consortium in their attempt of tackling the huge task of informing educators about what the Common Core Standards are all about. I just wish it wasn’t so cheesy. This is a HUGE time in education. The “powers that...

My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Piraino (you can imagine the nicknames we had for her), was a teacher that loved creativity. Every year she transformed her entire room into Santa’s workshop, letting her students build life size reindeer out of cardboard and decorate the walls with paper-crafted strings of garland. During the small group novel studies, she encouraged students to build dioramas, even entire set pieces for scenes from her...

It’s no secret that I’m a “hit and miss poet”. While I’d like to believe that my expository writing has improved since I started writing on a regular basis via this blog 7 years ago (I’ll let you pass judgement on the quality of my writing), I find that prose and other literary forms escape my realm of competence. Sure, I can turn out a decent poem or two if given enough time to consider meter, verse, and...

I’m a HUGE fan of Google Earth. Ever since the terribly buggy and laggy days of its first incarnations, I’ve used the resources provided by it, oogled monumental structures from space, and found ways to encourage teachers to use it more in their classroom. Sometimes I get pushback from teachers wanting a resource that’s more accessible to students, doesn’t require the internet, and will always be there even if the...

STEM is one of those edu-acronyms that gets tossed out at large conferences, as models for new innovative schools, and a “catch all” for science and math stuff lately, yet it still seems to mystify many teachers. An informal poll of teachers in my district revealed that while a good portion of them knew that it stood for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, many of them weren’t sure what it meant beyond students...

I’m a terrible poet. No really, I am. Whether it’s over-using simplistic imagery devices, abusing similes, or providing rather juvenile metaphors that make other novice poetry writer’s efforts seem sublime, I can’t write consistently decent lines of verse to save my life. Which is why I need practice! So much of our educational experiences, including our own and those we thrust upon our students, is building up to...