New Ideas for Using Technology in the Classroom

In the past I have mentioned my intent to use more technology in the classroom. Here are a few ideas that I have been exploring more and more on a daily basis. Of course, this depends on the resources that you have available, but all you need to be able to truly do these things [...]

Substitute Teachers

Our experience with substitute teachers varies widely. Sometimes our last interaction with substitute teachers was back in high school, when one entered our history or math classroom. (Note: these are the types that tend to chuckle over the memories of those experiences.) Some of us have been substitute teachers ourselves, which makes us appreciate the [...]

Schools, Kids and Nutrition

I find it very disturbing that, despite all of our concerns about American obesity and all of the physical health issues that go with it, we still have schools and parents that do not take responsibility for the nutrition of children, which is where our first education about nutrition begins!
Let me break it down for you, [...]

New Textbooks?

Although small schools often work from small budgets, they should always be looking for new ways to improve the resources that they use, and make sure that their textbooks are designed to be used within the framework of their school setup. For example, some textbooks (such as A Beka or Accelerated Christian Education) are typically [...]

Combating Racism in the Christian Classroom

I am always disappointed when I hear negative comments about the Christian community ignoring social issues such as racism. It happens in our churches, but we ignore it. It happens in our culture and in our world, yet we do not necessarily equip our youth to see it for what it is and do something [...]

Obama and McCain on Education: What Is In Store for Christian Education?

I must say that the election between Obama and McCain is storing up to be a very close race. And why shouldn’t it be? This is democracy at work, a moment that very well may be historical–either by the election of our first female VP, or by the election of our first black President. And [...]

Up To Your Ears in Paperwork?

You’re not alone. At least 50% (if not more) of teaching requires ugly, nasty, boring, time-consuming paperwork. Where does all this paperwork come from? From my experience, it comes from the following:

lesson planning and grading
communicating with parents via email/notes
writing and modifying assessments
documenting missing work from students
working with the resource department (and by this, I mean [...]

Rubric Grading: Uses and Benefits

Grading can be a time-consuming enterprise. Yesterday and today I stayed at school until 5:30pm grading papers and essays. Especially for the English teacher, grading writing assignments can be a daunting task. For elementary and secondary teachers, the temptation is to spend plenty of time nit-picking on each grammar and spelling error, commenting on all [...]

Classroom Management

As a first-year teacher just out of college, I didn’t have a clue. My students appeared to be well-behaved, interested individuals. I thought that if I had enough interesting lesson plans and assignments that all would be well and they wouldn’t want to interrupt, impede their own education and basically disrupt the class. Yeah, right. [...]

School Department Communication Online

Our school is in the process of writing curriculum, and I have been chosen “Department Head” by default. I have been at the school the longest, and am the one with the English degree who has taught the most amount of “English” classes, so somehow I am supposed to lead the rest of the English [...]