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 - Florida officer races to save infant left in hot car . . .

The Death and Life of the Great American School System is a walk in the park compared to her book, Reign of Error. It is a very thorough examination of the American school system. What I love about Ravitch is her candor.

She was actually part of President Bush's committee that helped usher in No Child Left Behind, but as the law took effect, Ravitch soon realize what a colossal error it was.

She has argued against over-testing and scripted curriculum ever since.

Week 27 (Mar. 11-15)

Teaching Thought #119

Give your class back to your students. Way #5 – Use whiteboard paint to give students space to display their thinking.

I gotta admit I love this idea. But I just have too much on my walls. But I should try and find a place for this. So many possibilities here.

From the article - One of the things that we are pushing for in our primary section to be included in our latest round of orders is for every classroom to have an Apple TV, and for every classroom to have a “thinkspace” made from whiteboard paint. I already try to give them as much of the available wall space as possible for posting visual displays of their thinking, but it is hard to match the sheer awesomeness of a full whiteboard wall like my kids are using above.

Teaching Thought #120

The Myth of Teacher (Part 1)

On rainy summer days, my grandmother used to snatch a title from her bookcase, sit down in her recliner, nestle me in her lap, and open new worlds to me. It only took a few lines before I forget about the dark skies outside while she read Watership Down, Huckleberry Finn, The Hobbit, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Of all the stories she read, though, one has stayed with me: the myth of Sisyphus from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. His eternal punishment was almost too much for my seven-year-old mind the first time Granny recounted his tale. Sisyphus is cursed to lug a boulder up a steep mountain, only to deliver it to the top and have it plummet back to the bottom. For all of his labor, he is forever toiling in futility.

Even the eternal lake of fire the nuns frightened us with at catechism didn't horrify me the way Sisyphus’ fate did. I couldn’t imagine a punishment worse than to work so hard, only to suffer failure after failure . . . for all eternity.

As a high school English teacher, I am well acquainted with his plight. Don’t get me wrong, there are dozens of moments every class period where I experience moments of great success. There is the satisfied smile on a student’s face when she opens up her research paper and sees the “A” scrawled across the top. There is the wide-eyed shock on several students’ faces when they reach the conclusion of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and realize what it means for the winner. There is the debate that erupts in class over a podcast featuring Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation, when the class realizes the author’s title is referring to their generation. These moments are sublime; they keep me in this profession. Despite these moments, though, I know that I will ultimately fail in some way with every one of my students. I am a real-life version of Sisyphus.

Teaching Thought #121

The Myth of Teacher (Part 2)

I squat, dig my heels in, place my shoulder against the granite, and with all my strength from my toes to my neck, I push. The boulder budges an inch. I don’t dare a look up the mountain. I keep my eyes focused on the ground and being my ascent . . .

That is how I feel when I begin a class. I am eager to do the work, to see my students learn. I am focused on one goal: engaging my students in the learning process. Yet, as students flood in with iPod buds burrowed in their ears, Blackberries clenched in their fists, and talk of last night’s hockey game on their tongues, I know the mountain is steep.

The rock is smooth against my face, minute particles of dirt grind between my clinching teeth, and drops of sweat sprout on my forehead and forearms as I inch up the mountain . . .

Surely, a single school year is not eternity. But multhoughtly 169 student days by the 30 kids in each of my three classes, and I have at least 15,210 trips up that mountain.

Teaching Thought #122

The Myth of Teacher (Part 3)

I have the boulder half way up the mountain. The footing is more treacherous. The rock seems twice as heavy up here . . . Most of my students turn in their responses to last night’s reading assignment. There are two, though, who have nothing to turn in. It has been that way for weeks. There are several who begin to concoct excuses, “I had to work until eleven” and “I emailed it to you! What do you mean you didn’t get it?” and “Our printer was out of ink.” Despite this, I push on . . .

The knowledge that I want to engage my students with is my boulder. Somewhere along the journey, the rock inevitably slips and careens back to the bottom. This occurs in a number of ways. First, a student can simply refuse to partake in my class. Mark peers out the window and watches the elementary kids play football across the street. He texts his girlfriend from the cell phone crammed in the front pocket of his jeans. Second, I can fail to make a student understand. Jacob isn’t able to penetrate Shakespeare’s prose, no matter how many vocabulary worksheets we do, how many times we read the footnotes, or how many times we translate the text into modern English. Third, I may engage a student and get them to grasp a key concept, but do all my students make the connection? I know Bryce understands the irony in the title of Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam war story, “The Things They Carried,” because his older brother fought in Iraq and now has his own burden of memories with which to deal. But do others relate to it? Fourth, a student may get the main idea of the lesson yet struggle putting it all together. They get frustrated and shut down. Jena can write a thesis statement, but she can't get her supporting paragraphs to fit in with her thesis. There are countless ways a teacher fails every single period of every single day.

Teaching Thought #123

The Myth of Teacher (Part 4)

I am almost at the crest. Sheer gravity has made the boulder and me nearly one . . . I have most of the class engaged. They are discussing the documentary I showed based on last night’s reading. Time flies. Then we realize there are ten minutes left in class. Some students keep discussing while others shut down. They clear their books off their desks and shuffle them into their backpacks. Cell phones appear on desks. Several turn and visit with those behind them. One even dares to meander to the door, ready to be the first one free...

Seeking a moment of relief, I dare sigh. The ground so stable on my ascent, suddenly gives . . .

Last Memorial weekend, I was cleaning my room and found an old textbook, Themes in World Literature.[1] I couldn’t help page through it, scanning the authors and titles. An essay entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus seized my attention. It changed my view of Sisyphus forever.

Camus casts Sisyphus not as a wretch toiling forever in futility; rather, Camus casts him as a hero, arguing that while Sisyphus's struggle seems to be in vain, it is really just the opposite. While it is true every effort to deliver the rock to the crest of that mountain is met with disappointment, it is also true that when the boulder inevitably tumbles back to the bottom, Sisyphus has time to reflect on his return. It is on his return that Sisyphus becomes heroic. Here he is aware of his fate. He does not toil in vain; Sisyphus is conscious of his fate. It is his fate, of his doing. Thus, he is master of it.

Camus reasons that since Sisyphus is conscious of his fate (he has no illusions about ever getting his boulder over the crest) he can take pleasure in the work, as Camus writes, "All Sisyphus's silent joy is constrained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing” (231). Is it tragic? Certainly. But it is his consciousness that makes it tragic and, at the same time, heroic.

If you're reading a book where the characters travel (such as Huck Finn), students could use this site to annotate the events that happen along the way and then produce a video of it to demonstrate to the class.

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'm even blessed enough to teach an Intro to Education class at UND during the fall.

I am about to begin my 21st year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in 1992. I come from a family of teachers: my grandmother was a country school teacher for a number of years before finishing out her career at Knox in TRF; my uncle Jim was an English professor at Western State in Gunnison, Co. My niece, Amanda, is a math teacher in Wayzata, MN. Teaching continues to run in the family.

As a result of my family influences, teaching was always something I wanted to do. The deciding factors, though, came 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, respectively.

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 amazing elementary school teacher in her own right, 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), whose weekly newsletter "High Impact Leadership," is directly responsible for influencing me to create this newsletter.

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
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