“We have ghosts among us that are in plain sight!”- High School English Teacher In The Sixth Sense, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, a troubled and isolated 9-year-old boy is able to see and talk to dead people. Throughout the movie he endures chilling
I grew up in the late 60s and early 70s. The U.S. space program was in full throttle. Beginning in 1969 with Apollo XI when I was seven and ending in 1972 with Apollo XVII when I was ten, six awkward-looking but awesome landing crafts
My mother, like most parents, had stock sayings she used whenever my clichéd irresponsible conduct warranted clichéd commentary. "Wipe that smile off your face." "Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about." "God, give me strength." Among the more interesting was: "You
This blog has been a bridge of learning between my previous work with the Quaglia Institute and my present work as a classroom teacher. Now four months into reflecting each week on moving from theory to practice, I remain grateful for the opportunity to articulate
Every Monday after school the Philosophy Club meets. It happens to meet in my classroom. As a consequence, I happened to sit in on it a few weeks ago. I was not assigned to it as a moderator. I was not looking for something to
Ever so slowly we are introducing more and more student voice into our decision making at Catholic Memorial. As I have experienced in so many other schools, I now see in my school how student voice is and is becoming the instrument of change. What
First quarter grades closed last Friday and grades were due today. I have written previously about the uneasy relationship between learning, time, and grades. It felt strange to me in effect to say, "Time’s up!" on learning. But I became more comfortable as the actual
At the Quaglia Institute, as we worked to shed light on the need for increased Student Voice, the issue of Teacher Voice and Teacher Aspirations inevitably would emerge. In some schools it would erupt! What we learned is that whatever a school’s mission or explicitly
A big part of our efforts at QISA last year was the research, discussion, and writing of (insert shameless plug :) Aspire High: Imagining Tomorrow’s School Today. Russ, Kris, Gavin, and I had numerous back and forth conversations about what a school that genuinely meets the
When Russ Quaglia first proposed the idea of a weekly blog exploring the journey from theory to practice, I had an initial hesitation. Not because I don’t enjoy writing. I actually love to write. And not because I didn’t think the idea had merit. Even