How good to periodically look over to your right as you sit in your front row box seats in the Philadelphia Wachovia Center, and to see the play of lights on the faces of the niece and nephew in rapt attention to the show on the ice. Disney princesses? Check. Snacks packed by their mom [...]
Too funny… watch out for those sleepless nights, no?
Down in Pennsylvania for the holidays–driving in with S. and first getting dropped off at my sister’s place mid-evening. The explosion of niece and nephew into your arms when you first get through the door? Nothing more warming that that– love it. Sister and brother-in-law cooking up the full breakfast the next morning (some kind [...]
A good meeting this afternoon for the state Knowledge and Skills of Professional Teaching project that I’m a part of. And in our discussion about the components and categories of professional culture, one of our subcommittee members commented. Something along the lines of this: Our language and commentary about school are often so grim and [...]
Now that’s what I’m talking about…
Waiting for the beginning of the season’s first big snowstorm– less than half an hour before midnight, with the fridge stocked with rich breakfast and lunch and dinner plans– has to be one of the best feelings out there. Bring on the snow!
… so says Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, in this Washington Post interview on the leadership efforts required to reform a large school district (his being the largest, I believe). I like the general tact he takes about taking on large systems–absolutely, boldness and applying the gas in a [...]
There’s plenty of literature out there that describes the woeful situations where teacher evaluation isn’t done well–whether in the recent New Yorker article that describes New York City’s rubber room for teachers in limbo or the article on the widget effect that points out that fewer than one percent of the 40,000 teachers covered in [...]
You never know what you’ll stumble across when you hit the ‘next blog’ button on Blogger (or other such sites), and that’s exactly the appeal. The birth of a new tag / category for my running commentary, friends. And for a first share? A reference to this site came up, an artist with a photographic [...]
End of 2009…
So I recently heard someone joking about those holiday letters that sometimes get sent out, A Newsletter from the Jensons! for example, reprising the major events of the year–or,minor events, as was sarcastically pointed out–for the letter-sending family; the haps and mishaps a year brings. Sure, I get the overall cheesyness of it– but to [...]