< p style=”text-align: center;”> Several years ago I was sitting in the aisle seat of an American Airlines 737 in Dallas, catching the evening flight to Vancouver. While we waited on the tarmac, a serious man in his early fifties cleared his throat and pushed the attendant button above us. When the flight attendant arrived […]
Read more "Harnessing Consumer Rage"Between 2003 and 2005 I spent three consecutive summers working in the woods of the Ozark Foothills in Arkansas at a summer camp, living in tents alongside sixty some young instructors huddling our lives around the idea that the indulgent experience of nature could provide some truth. We would wake with the dawn and attend […]
Read more "On Thoreau's Birthday"As part of my summer course work finishing up PDP at SFU, I took an eight-credit Designs for Learning Language Arts course with Dr. Carolyn Mamchur – to this date one of the most intelligent, warm and inspirational people I have yet encountered – during which each student was to study their favourite author. Since declaring […]
Read more "Marquezologue"A few weeks ago a group of my friends headed south to George, Washington to attend the Sasquatch Music Festival and enjoy five days of revelry set against the backdrop of the Gorge Amphitheatre, taking in such acts as Fleet Foxes, Kings of Leon, M. Ward, and others over the course of the weekend. One […]
Read more "The Human Solution of Dancing"Last week I was in an elevator with a young couple, and was thinking about the nature of human interaction in confined spaces. Evidently I’m not the only one who is given to such thoughts, as the following can attest: Elevators are relatively recent inventions, but the social challenges they pose are nothing new. Close proximity […]
Read more "The Human Problem with Elevators"I spent the better part of last week in the woods. With my teaching partner and our 27 students – one left behind to combat continued health issues – and my youngest sister in tow, we left school just after 6:30 Thursday morning and made our way with the help of assorted parent-drivers and a U-Haul to the […]
Read more "Oudoor Networks"On the same day that I lost an lengthy post on my experience with comprehensive assessment as a means of focusing classroom learning around the engagement of each student’s role in the group, Dave Truss used as inspiration for his post, Chasing the A, a link to an extensive student blog post: Why our education […]
Read more "Comprehensive Assessment and the Meaning of Grades"Near the end of a sunny weekend I have spent immersed in Shakespeare, Orwell and words written physically on a page (somehow becoming a strange thought for this literature-teacher), I am called back to the stillness, soul and freedom spoken by the great poets. In Arkansas I had a friend who taught me about flyfishing […]
Read more "Happy Birthday Walt Whitman"A highlight of Alec Couros’ massive resource of 80+ Videos for Tech. & Media Literacy. < p style=”text-align: center;”>
Read more "The Networked Student"I teach a two-year gifted program which covers the curriculums of English 9, 10 and 11* (if there are capabable learners), Social Studies 9 and 10 1, Math 9, 10 & 11* (again, with the proper students), Science 9 and 10, as well as ministry-mandated Career and Personal Planning, and extra-elective Leadership 11 2. I have […]
Read more "Networked Teaching: A First Installment"