In all aspects of life I’m most inspired to write when something is going extremely well or extremely poorly. This is some sort of explanation to why I’m actually forcing myself to write tonight instead of being drawn to my computer in a need to let my frusterations out of my head and into the…

Today I was almost in shock. The fifth period boys, the worst of the worst, came in quietly, took out a piece of paper and started working on the Do Now….. quietly. I was flabbergasted. I helped someone with a division problem. It was incredible. I was in such a good mood about only asking…

I’m sitting in my classroom. There are many things to be done. I have an hour of time to do whatever they are but I’m sitting here, lifeless, unable to do work. I have curled up on the dirty carpeted floor of my classroom and cried too many times this week. Classes were not even…

I tried to escape Las Vegas this weekend by driving to Zion National Park with a bunch of other teachers. We parked at the base of the huge cliff and strapped on our backpacks. At the end of a grueling four hour hike up switchback after switch back we reached our campsite. The stars were…

One of the students who is on my side in fifth period Algebra stayed after class to talk to me about some of the behavior in the class. It seemed like a good idea to get more specifics about students but I was unprepared to what extent the information would affect me. He let me…

I spent my prep period today writing ridiculously-detailed dean’s referrals for 7 of the boys in my algebra class. Roni helped me get them started with some awesome referrals detailing “E*** is a constant disruption. He is disrespectful and challenges authority. He prevents the class from functioning. He was documented in the behavior log on…

I’m debating if I want to be happy or sad in my blog post today. I wonder what is more interesting for people to read about. I guess I could do both. I was happy to see some of the posts, especially those from people I never expect to be reading. My babysitter from when…

My roommate and I had an interesting discussion which inspired me further on the topic of success, perfection, mediocrity and sanity. Considering that it is highly unlikely that he will read this, I might as well give you an overview of my roommate. Mike is a perfectionist. His body is a finely-tuned machine. He can…