Here is a past post on the importance of culture.

The news is so full of negativity that a few years ago I took to creating a positive story board on Pinterest to try and remind myself that there is good in the world.

Here is this week's example of what Hemingway was talking about - Officer comforts boy screaming and inconsolably crying . . . This is compassion.

McCourt wrote "Angela's Ashes" But he was also a high school English teacher in New York for most of his life. 'Tis is his account of what it was like to be an Irish immigrant turned high school English teacher at one of the most exclusive high schools in New York City. Plus it has one of the greatest illustrations of an epiphany moment in anything I've ever read about teaching. See below.

From 'Tis: A Memoir -

I followed the teacher’s guides. I launched the prefabricated questions at my classes. I hit them with surprise quizzes and tests and destroyed them with the ponderous detailed examinations concocted by college professors who assemble high school text books.

Everyday I’d teach with my guts in a knot, lurking behind my desk at the front of the room playing the teacher game with the chalk, the eraser, the red pen, the teacher guides, the power of the quiz, the test, the exam. I’ll call your father, I’ll call your mother. ,I’ll report you to the governor, I’ll damage your average so badly kid you’ll be lucky to get into a community college in Mississippi. Weapons of menace and control.

A senior, Jonathan, bangs his forehead on his desk and wales, Why? Why? Why do we have to suffer with this shit? We’ve been in school since kindergarten, thirteen years, and why do we have to know what color shoes Mrs. Dalloway was wearing at her goddam party and what are we supposed to make of Shakespeare troubling deaf heaven with his bootless cries and what the hell is a bootless cry anyway and when did heaven turn deaf?

Around the room rumbles of rebellion and I’m paralyzed. They’re saying Yeah, yeah to Jonathan, who halts his head banging to ask, Mr. McCourt, did you have this stuff in high school? and there’s another chorus of yeah yeah and I don’t know what to say. Should I tell them the truth, that I never set foot in a high school till I began teaching in one or should I feed them a lie about a rigorous secondary school education with the Christian Brothers in Limerick?

I’m saved, or doomed, by another student who calls out, Mr. McCourt, my cousin went to McKee on Staten Island and she said you told them you never went to high school and they said you were an okay teacher anyway because you told stories and talked and never bothered them with these tests.

Smiles around the room. Teacher unmasked. Teacher never even went to high school and look what he’s doing to us, driving us crazy with tests and quizzes. I’m branded forever with the label, teacher who never went to high school.

So, Mr. McCourt, I thought you had to get a license to teach in the city.

You do.

Don’t you have to get a college degree?

You do.

Don’t you have to graduate high school?

You mean graduate from high school, from high school, from from from.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Don’t you have to graduate from high school to get into college?

I suppose you do.

Tyro lawyer grills teacher, carries the day, and word spreads to my other classes. Wow, Mr. McCourt, you never went to high school and you’re teaching at Stuyvesant? Cool, man.

And into the trash basket I drop my teaching guides, my quizzes, tests, examinations, my teacher-knows-all mask.

I’m naked and starting over and I hardly know where to begin.

Week 35 (May 13-17)

Teaching Thought #156

One of my all time favorite books is Austin Kleon’s short but excellent Steal Like an Artist. Kleon offers ten ways to unleash your creativity.

Too often, beyond elementary school anyway, teachers never get a chance to display their creativity. Or, worse yet, they lament that they just aren’t creative. Which is total BS.

Follow these thoughts to boost your creativity in your class. Your students don’t just deserve it, they’ll appreciate it.

2. Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started

I look back on my first few years of teaching quite fondly now. I was frustrated at the time, though, because I wasn’t the teacher I wanted to be.

But that was good thing.

I just needed to be patient and keep trying different things until I found who I was as a teacher. I know that sounds corny as hell and quite cliché but it’s true.

I looked up to one teacher above all: Loiell Dyrud.

He was so interesting and he knew so damn much. I could just talk with him (more likely just listen to him) for hours. I spent many days my first year down in his room talking shop.

Now I won’t say – even after 20 years – that I’m the type of teacher Dyrud was. That’s impossible. Even now on my very best days, maybe I could maybe tie his shoes, but I certainly could never fill them.

But had I not blundered my way along over those 20 years, trying different things (working my way through the 100 word vocab list and devising unique ways to teach them – such as vocab bingo and awarding super duper prizes; teaching To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and mucking it all up; learning the hard way on one poetry lesson for “A Dream Deferred” that what goes great first block may not resonate the same way with third block; overusing college work days my first few years in teaching College in the High School; teaching grammar out of context . . . I could go on and on), but all of those trials and errors helped me become the teacher I am today.

I recall visiting with a first year teacher a number of years ago. She was so caught up on trying to be great that I told her to slow down. In fact, I told her that she had to be good first before she could be great.

She didn’t want to hear that, but it was true. I shared how I went through all of my problems before I finally found my way as a teacher and discovered my teaching style.

Don’t think you have to have it all nailed down your first year. It takes years. In fact, it was in my 18th year that I was attending a graduation party for Max, who had taken both College Comp I and II from me. His mother pulled me aside and thanked me for all that I had done for Max.

I said Max was a gifted writer and there really wasn’t all that much I could do for him other than reading his work, encouraging him, and trying to get him to read interesting things.

Then his mother uttered the best compliment I’ve ever, “You know. When Dyrud retired, I never thought we’d have another teacher like him, but you remind me so much of him.”

That was as good as it could get! I was on cloud nine. In fact, I still am on cloud nine thanks to that high praise!

Teaching Thought #157

One of my all-time favorite books is Austin Kleon’s short but excellent Steal Like an Artist. Kleon offers ten ways to unleash your creativity.

Too often, beyond elementary school anyway, teachers never get a chance to display their creativity. Or, worse yet, they lament that they just aren’t creative. Which is total BS.

Follow these thoughts to boost your creativity in your class. Your students don’t just deserve it, they’ll appreciate it.

3. Write the book you want to read

Okay, maybe as a teacher you aren’t going to write a book, but instead try this – teach the lesson you’d want to learn!

That’s how I approach every assignment. If the textbook or curriculum has a worthy assignment, I’ll use it. But if not, I’ll redesign it or come up with something new, something I’d love to have as a student.

Teaching Thought #158

One of my all time favorite books is Austin Kleon’s short but excellent Steal Like an Artist. Kleon offers ten ways to unleash your creativity.

Too often, beyond elementary school anyway, teachers never get a chance to display their creativity. Or, worse yet, they lament that they just aren’t creative. Which is total BS.

Follow these thoughts to boost your creativity in your class. Your students don’t just deserve it, they’ll appreciate it.

4. Use your hands

Dave Burgess reminds us that just because he teaches that the high school that doesn’t mean he can’t still have his students create stuff the old-fashioned way. Sometimes we get caught up with technology and think that everything has to be done via a screen. But Burgess reminds us that sometimes glue sticks, cardboard, masking tape, markers, and pipe cleaners are the best creativity apps out there.

What can you have your students create or build that illustrate their mastery of something?

Teaching Thought #159

One of my all time favorite books is Austin Kleon’s short but excellent Steal Like an Artist. Kleon offers ten ways to unleash your creativity.

Too often, beyond elementary school anyway, teachers never get a chance to display their creativity. Or, worse yet, they lament that they just aren’t creative. Which is total BS.

Follow these thoughts to boost your creativity in your class. Your students don’t just deserve it, they’ll appreciate it.

5. Side projects and hobbies are important

This is what I mean when you say “Let your freak flag fly.” This is what Dave Burgess means when he talks about different types of passions (passion for content and personal passion). We need our side projects (for me it’s Legos) and hobbies (watching my pathetic Bengals) because they help make us human to our students. I can’t underestimate the importance of these things. Plus, they help us from burning out.

Teaching Thought #160

One of my all time favorite books is Austin Kleon’s short but excellent Steal Like an Artist. Kleon offers ten ways to unleash your creativity.

Too often, beyond elementary school anyway, teachers never get a chance to display their creativity. Or, worse yet, they lament that they just aren’t creative. Which is total BS.

Follow these thoughts to boost your creativity in your class. Your students don’t just deserve it, they’ll appreciate it.

6. The secret: Do good work and share it with people.

Share what you do. Celebrate the wins. You’re not being egotistical. You’re spreading the word. Every time a student Tweets something at me or shared something positive on Instagram or Facebook, I share it. I want others to see what they’re missing out on or what is going on in my class. We all work hard and do great things. Don’t be afraid to share it!

Dan Rockwell of Leadership freak. A ton of value and content here.

If this doesn't brighten your day, you're living in a black hole.

How you could use this in class -

1. Have students watch and note what songs they've known that are really originally done by the Beatles. This happened to me in 1984 when I was listening to Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil. The last song on the first side is "Helter Skelter." I never knew it was a Beatles song until my brother - several months later - told me.

2. What role does story telling play in this series?

3. Analyze why this segment of his show makes James Gordon so much different than other late night shows.

4. What role does music play in this episode?

5. If you were to have your own "Carpool Karaoke" show, who would you want to feature and why?

6. Paul McCartney graduate high school thinking he had no musical talent at all. What does this say about our education system and how it values the arts?

7. Why do you think the Beatles music has endured so long when so many other artists have come and gone?

8. What artists today will people still be listening to 50 years from now?

9. Interview your grandparents or great grandparents about the Beatles.

10. Do some research on Beatles' mania when they first came to America. Is there any groups today that rival that type of hysteria?

11. What is your favorite Beatles' cover? Post an example. Mine is below.

This site allows you to create timelines around events. I find timelines as a great way to help remember things and to illustrate things.

I included an example of one I made just for fun on my passion for one of my favorite bands, Def Leppard in the 1980's and very early '90's.

between John Merrow and Frank McCourt, but I did find a .pdf transcript, which is linked below. Enjoy.

I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.

We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.

I am about to begin my 21st year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.

I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.

I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.

I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Chirstensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."

In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.

Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney.

In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, and Laura Brickson. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.

Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.

Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
Location: 101 South Knight Aver Thief River Falls MN 56701
Phone: 218-686-7395
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kurt.reynolds.5?ref=bookmarks
Twitter: @teacherscribe