Middle school ELA, 150 students, and what they teach me back.
I broke up my first fight today. It’s a new quarter, and as an electives teacher, I got all new students. Across my five class periods, I was happy to find that each class was better behaved and more attentive than last quarter’s—that was until my final class of the day. I still think they’re…
Four or five months ago, my life underwent a surprisingly drastic change. I knew I was about to become a father, but I didn’t know I’d be moving to South Carolina and teaching at a middle school. Rewind to a year ago, and I didn’t even know I wanted to be a teacher. In fact,…
Have you ever had your phone stolen? I don’t think it’s ever happened to me personally, but I know a few people who’ve been through it, and I’ve had other things stolen from me in the past. It leaves you with a disgusted feeling, doesn’t it? Today it happened to one of my students. He…
Yesterday I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to the sound of chattering monkeys, today a student blew himself up, and my baby spit up all over me right after I changed my shirt. If any of those topics interest you, read on. Ok, it wasn’t really monkeys I heard yesterday morning, but let…
For the record, I never wanted to be a teacher. Not once while I was growing up. When I got into college, I thought about it once or twice, but quickly shook my head. I’m not built to be a teacher. I’ve always had problems with authority, and teachers—well, they’re supposed to respect authority. And…
What do Israel, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, and Russia all have in common? Can you think of anything? Besides the fact that they’re all countries, each produces something unique. In fact, almost every country in the world makes its own version of it. Figured it out yet? Coins. That’s what I’m talking about—and until recently,…
Why are kids so interested in getting thrown into dungeons? Seriously, that might sound crazy to you, but my students practically beg for it. It started when I told them the decommissioned bathroom in the back corner of my classroom was the closet of doom. Instead of shying away from it, they got excited and…
I read online today that the FBI likes to hire teachers—and I’m starting to see why. I’ve officially survived my third week as a middle school teacher at a Title I school, and let me tell you, it’s a lot. Every day my list of duties seems to grow a little longer. The kids demand…
I got suspended back in seventh grade—now I teach it. I wasn’t a “bad” student, but I didn’t always follow the rules either. Looking back, I still wonder how I ended up here. I enjoyed school well enough, but certainly not enough to imagine doing it for a living after graduation. My suspension came from…
Video game design involves a lot more than coding and character art. Those are big parts of it, sure, but I’ve noticed something interesting: just because you play video games doesn’t mean you’ll be good at designing them. You’d think that years of gaming would qualify you to work on them, but that simply isn’t…