Category: Teaching

One of the questions that I most frequently field from fellow teachers is, “How do I go about creating a website like yours?” In fact, I’ve spent so much time responding to this question over the years that I’ve decided to post a response to the question here I won’t waste your time with a […]

Teachers and students – beware of the iceberg. You just said “yes” to another request for your time and expertise. Do you know what you really agreed to? The image of an iceberg has been beaten to death as a metaphor for everything from “Motivation” to “Socio-Emotional Wellness”. Bear with me as I add to […]

If “Ladder Safety” seems like a strange topic for a teaching blog, I must say that I concur. Several years ago, my school district began providing some required inservice training through an online video format. Topics included important subjects like mandated reporting of abuse, blood borne pathogens, and harassment in the workplace. In the Fall […]

When I transferred to El Diamante High School is 2003, I moved into a science room that had not been used, because the school had just opened the previous year. Each science room had its own prep room (wasteful) with its own fume hood (wasteful) and its own refrigerator bay (heaven!). This post is a […]

June of 2019 brought retirement after thirty-three years in Visalia classrooms, and a total of thirty-eight years of educating teenagers. The decision did not come easily, but I am certain that it was the right decision. I won’t burden the reader with my thought process – it was highly personal. It is enough to say […]

Acceleration is the rate of change in the rate of change. This entire school year has been a year for embracing change. Anyone in this profession for the long-haul had better get used to change, and to an ever increasing rate of change in the rate of change. Prepare for instructional acceleration. During this school […]

Another school year already brings us another notable classroom chemistry accident. Once again, “the Rainbow Experiment” has claimed victims, this time at a high school in Virginia. After 30 years of teaching science, including 28 years of teaching chemistry, I am done “playing nice” on the subject of safety. Let me start by saying that the […]

“Kids these days!” I imagine that since earliest human history, there has been a tendency for older generations to see the younger generations as their unworthy heirs. You can almost hear the complaints from just outside the cave – “Kids these days are spoiled, lazy and act as if mammoth steak grows on trees. If […]

Each year when registration time rolls around for the following year’s classes, I get students asking me questions about AP Chemistry. Some students want to take the class because they see a future in sciences. Others enjoyed General Chemistry and think AP Chemistry might be “fun”. Some students are trying to pack in as many […]

I recently posted about a quote that has mistakenly been  attributed to Einstein. While researching that mistaken attribution, I came across another that I felt compelled to address. This one has been shared in staff development at my school, and was also mistakenly attributed to Albert Einstein. This one has always rubbed me the wrong way, and […]