Before teaching I would linger over meals.  Eating just a burger and fries could take a half hour or more as I sat and talked with a friend or read a book.  There was no rush, so why not enjoy my meal?  That was before I had to learn to eat in the twenty to twenty-five minutes allotted for a school lunch.  Nowadays I can finish a three course Thanksgiving dinner in less than ten minutes.  And that's counting going in for seconds. I'm continually amazed that no speed eating records are held by teachers.  Seems like a natural. 

#10) Classic Combination- this impressive excuse classically combines creatures, companions, and cars. It sounds like a future special on the Fox Network, which could be titled, “Student Excuses: When Dookie Doves Attack”:

“Hey Mr. Preston—here’s my excuse for my tardy. I was running late because I hit my snooze button too many times. So I ran to my car so I could go and get Katie (cause we carpool), and I got in my car, looked up and couldn’t even see out the window. There was soooooooo much bird dookie all over the windshield that I could barely even see to drive to the car wash to get it off! So it took me like 10 minutes and two dollars at the 25 cent car wash. So that is why Katie and I were late last week, hopefully it will never happen again.”

I remember Alma giving me a handful of used markers when she found out it was my birthday.

I remember Aisha suggesting our whole class write and perform a play for Ronald McDonald House which became a became a show and a carnival and was one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of.

I don’t remember every kid anymore even when I see their names, but I remember almost all of them.

Charlie Phillips owner of the Chat and Chew Café across the street was similarly surprised: “I was amazed. Usually, the only time I see kids playing on that field these days is when the local travel soccer team practices from 4:00 to 7:30 every afternoon or when that one dad brings his kid down to do agility drills in the mornings before he brings him to daycare.”

You know you are deeply involved in your education Ph.D. program when

you put parenthetical citations in your Facebook comments.

three-hour lectures on the need to not lecture don’t seem surprisingly ironic anymore.

Dear Mr. Alden,

I’m grading my final exams, and I am wondering how you set your curve. I want to uphold a high standard, but I want to be fair to my kids.

Grading in Gettysburg

This challenge is vividly illustrated in a current controversy at my high school. As a part of our WASC Action Plan, we are supposed to develop school-wide activities whose aim is to improve the social and academic culture at our high school. One aspect of that culture arises from the fact that we serve two different communities. One is comprised almost entirely of upper-middle class and wealthy professionals who are of European or Asian ancestry. The other is more economically diverse, but includes a large number of working class and poor families who are predominantly Latino. They go to separate elementary and middle schools, so they don’t interact until they reach high school.

Through a combination of some spectacularly horrible scheduling and my second-year naiveté, I was convinced that it was a good idea to have a majority of the special education students from the fifth grade level included in my general education classroom. To defend my second-year self a bit, kindly consider that my first year was spent crammed into the tiny, overheated corner room, trying not to step on twenty-eight fifth-graders. When I heard the number eighteen – eighteen! – general education students for the majority of my school day, the fact that these four special education students would join the rest of us for part of the day didn’t seem all that important.

Our line leader of the week likes to skip. The body just behind, cleverly (but not skillfully) wants to show how she can walk backwards too!  The fourth body down is using the hallway walls to rehearse for Pong.  Bodies ten and eleven are engaged in a spontaneous hug, smiling ear to ear with body thirteen physically and verbally encouraging them to “GO!”