Today was the first day of the 2013–2014 academic year. As I have been for the past five years, I am teaching two sections of AP Psychology this year. As Yosup Joo and I were arranging the desks for class today, we had to think back to last year’s …

Today was my first day back on campus full-time after Summer vacation, and I found in my mailbox the 2013 Subject Score Roster for my two sections of AP Psychology. I had 51 students take the AP Psych test, and 48 passed. That’s a 94% pass rate. …

On Thursday, May 30, 2013, I found the above poster in my mailbox in the Faculty Lounge; there was neither a card nor any other indication of its origin.

I really like it! I like the colors (they match the palette of our apartment’s paint and …

Over breakfast, I finished The Happiness Manifesto, by Nic Marks. While only “okay,” I did find a few thoughts worth holding on to:

Much of modern life is based upon a false logic, a logic that assumes that happiness and well-being come from …

For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.

At the end of this academic year, my sixth as Educational Technologist, I was again included in the Administrative Evaluations wherein teaching faculty respond to a dozen or so questions about various members of the school administration.

Embedded …

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Having “taken” Dan Ariely’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior” MOOC, I’ve been thinking more about using experiments to test my suspicions about curriculum and instruction. Yesterday, I ran an experiment with my students, using the two class …

We’ve all heard the aprocryphal response from George Mallory to the question of why he wants to climb Mount Everest: “Because it’s there.” What he actually said, though less pithy, is more compelling:

The first question which you will ask and which …

It’s understandable that schools still offer blogging workshops, but the fact is that teachers don’t need a workshop on that. There are thousands of how-to’s for every possible blogging platform (or wiki platform, or Twitter, or video tool, and so …

Let’s start the story 120 years ago, when American factories began to electrify their operations, igniting the Second Industrial Revolution. The amazing thing is that productivity did not increase in those factories for 30 years. Thirty years. That’s …

Yesterday morning, in the Faculty Room getting coffee, I spoke with a colleague who teaches in the Religious Studies department about the hidden curriculum of sex education. The hidden curriculum is the unstated goals or outcomes of education, such …

When I work, my first relationship with people is professional. There are people who want to be your friend right away. I say, “We’re not gonna be friends until we get this done. If we don’t get this done, we’re never going to be friends, because if …

Here is a radical truth: school doesn’t have a monopoly on learning. More and more people are declining traditional education and college degrees. Instead they’re getting the knowledge, training, and inspiration they need outside of the classroom. …

The Faculty Men’s Group meets every two weeks to pray together and engage in faith-sharing. For yesterday’s meeting, I was responsible for the opening prayer. Yesterday also happened to be the Inauguration of Pope Francis I, and the Feast of St …

This afternoon will be my first day as the official Course Recorder for the Jack Wilsey Track. In that capacity, I’ll be overseeing the timing of all track events and verifying all times with the finish line camera. And I’m incredibly nervous about …

After introducing the Psychological Disorders & Therapy Unit, Yosup and I had a long debrief. By way of lead-in to this reflection, I liked what he said when we finally walked out of our classroom: “This is when I wish I was a Math teacher.” He’s …

When I was the Chair of the Social Science Department, I read What the Best College Teachers Do, by Dr Ken Bain, and redesigned our Student Questionnaire reflection questions based on the research findings.[1] Having reviewed the suggested reflection …

I would’ve liked to have written this reflection a few days ago, right after finishing the topic of disordered eating, but I was felled by the flu, and am just now, three days later, regaining my feet.

Changes

Survey

In conversation with my …

Every year when I get to the topics of disordered eating and, later, suicide, I get nervous. Both are “trigger” issues, topics that can remind students of prior psychological trauma. Yosup and I have spoken a few times over the past week about …

With nine chapters completed in our text during the Fall Semester, and a cumulative Final Exam next week, I gave students a choice of review formats. I could go over commonly-missed terms and concepts, and review the top-level narrative of the topics …

Over the weekend an opinion piece by Louis Menand, The End of Homework?, in The New Yorker made it across my RSS feed. I read it and passed it along to our Assistant Principal of Academics with the note: “This will be in next week’s New Yorker, but I …

History fans,

As we approach Christmas break, I’m already picking out where I’ll walk to in the City to enjoy a good sandwich, and sit and read. I’ve read a few great books this past semester that I thought you might enjoy too.

The Ghost Map, by …

This is a brief note-to-self regarding the downtime necessary for deep thought and reflection — and how MUNI saved my bacon on Friday. Thursday I had realized that I had no lesson plan for Friday’s Introduction to Psychology classes, and by the time …

As I noted earlier, on Thursday, I was struck by the unfamiliar feeling of panic, not knowing what I was going to do with a class for the last day of the week. I’d finished the curriculum not just one day early, as I’d thought, but two days early — …