500th Post! And a Couple of Firsts.

Waitaminnit! I just went and looked, and the first posts on this here blog were all the way back in 2008. Nine years?! 500 posts?! Ok, some are reruns (mebbe 10-15%), but still… 270,000+ words! But enough looking backward… Although today’s post does have a bunch of links to some old classics from over the […]

Best Thank You Note Ever!

There are a couple of younger teachers on our staff who occasionally take a couple minutes out of a day and make the kids each write a thank you note to a teacher. One in particular does it fairly regularly, and he obviously has a stash of free blank generic cards and envelopes that he […]

I Get Paid the Same…

Today I was giving every kid a drive-by, checking vocabulary homework. I am all about the vocabulary, baby. As (I think) Ray Bradbury said, “You can’t think the thoughts if you don’t know the words.” The big-haired consultant lady we were subjected to for over a year even finally admitted, after months of jabbering about other […]

The Other Mr. Coward

I have always said that I will never retire. I figure that I need a job at least half the year (185/365 ain’t bad, I have to say) to keep me from getting too lazy and to keep me out of trouble. One usually leads to the other, at least in my experience. Besides, it’s still […]

Go Visiting!

I had my annual “Goals Meeting” with my principal the other day. In our district, you get the full “Evaluation” every other year, and in between you have to have an educational goal for the year with a meeting at each end of the year more or less. I’m on the off year, and my […]

There’s Only Room for One of Us in This Town

While I am currently on my sixth principal, I am only working on my fourth English department head. The current one is the best since the first one, way back in the day, but it’s only her second year here, so she’s still learning what the junior high animal is all about. If you’re wondering […]

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