After I was discharged from the military (honorably even though I had been AWOL for a short time, but that is another story to be told at a later date) I worked for a couple of years in a fabric and dye plant. I wrote about that experience in my entry titled ‘Remembering Jonas’. That […]
Category Archives: teaching and learning
It has been eight years since I left the classroom. There was a little push from some minor health issues and a bigger shove from administration at my school that kept pressuring and threatening my practice and integrity. I want to write this blog entry for teaching colleagues, retired and active, former students of my […]
Mayor Kenney just announced the 9 members of the new school board, and he deserves recognition for the diversity of the new members. Choosing diversity is a good first step, but it must be accompanied with choosing members who demonstrate a commitment to full and fair funding for public schools. That is not so evident […]
This photograph is from the John Mosely collection and was taken in 1962. The demonstration took place at the construction site for the public school at Strawberry Mansion, and the people in the neighborhood were protesting because all of the construction workers were white – the construction took place in an African American community and […]
Recently a former colleague of mine passed away. We were both on the faculty at an urban middle/high school in Philadelphia and her passing made me think about the feelings that I had when she transferred to another Philly high school. I believed, at that time, that a teacher should have a clear […]
The first date is April 4, 1968 – the date of Martin Luther King’s assassination. The second date is April 5th – my birthdate. At this time each year I find myself reflecting on the conjunction of those two dates. First – the birthday – I have never been a huge fan of celebrating […]
Team teaching can be a powerful way to develop a curriculum that places student learning at the center of attention. When team teaching is grounded in principles of cooperation, social justice and innovation, it can produce teaching that is vibrant and results in an organic classroom practice that matures as the student/teacher community grows […]
This will at least be the beginning of the telling of this story. I recently read an article in The Atlantic that was titled ‘Why Teachers of Color Quit’. This article was brought to my attention by a former teacher friend and colleague, and the article resonated with me, making me think again about the […]
Since the new school year is about to begin, I am reaching out to Philly public school teachers to share some thoughts about two articles that came to my attention in the last few days. The first article was in the Inquirer from Aug 18th, 2015, and concerned a $2 million Gates grant given to […]
I have been writing a number of blog entries about my teaching experiences, but have included some family stories and now, another story about my experiences as a volunteer in a wildlife clinic. I am working on a blog entry about the ethical dilemmas facing teachers in this era of standardized teaching and standardized tests, […]
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