Personal Connections
by Galen Rosenberg
But as I've passed my twentieth year of teaching and well over two thousand students have passed through my classes, I've begun to see the dangers in focusing too enthusiastically on the lasting and deep personal relationships I've had with a couple of dozen students. Like the crack cocaine that the teacher-protagonist craves in Half Nelson, the pleasure of a meaningful relationship does feel real in the moment, but it can hide realities that are much more important in a larger educational context. . . . more

Old Guy Thinking
by Mark Hanington
Doing well in school is nice because learning is fun. It is the brain's endless hobby. But if you are in a setting where learning isn't fun, it's perfectly reasonable for you to ask to be excused. That's not the same thing as refusing to rise to a challenge or to overcome a barrier, but learning is fun and if that is not your experience in school, then something is wrong with school, not you. . . . more

Find it in Film: an Interview
with Peter Gutierrez
On a personal level, I'm always looking to combine my love of film and my commitment to education.  And two things about this overlapping area struck me -- that there are thousands of teachers out there who use feature film clips in their classrooms, but unless they're making presentations at a NCTE or NCSS, or have their own Web sites, they're not really sharing these ideas with other educators.  I also noticed that there are a lot of great clip-oriented correlations and teaching resources available but the information is very fragmented. . . . more

Woman Trampled at Conference Exhibition Hall
by Tracy Shockey
FS News Service
"All of a sudden I heard, 'Heinemann is giving out tote bags' and that's when I felt the surge. Before I knew it, I was on the ground with hundreds of feet and one set of motorized wheel chair wheels trampling me. Frankly, I was terrified;" she continued. "I had waited all year for that moment, and it was being ruined." . . . more

To Pad or Not to Pad,
That is the Lesson
by Ian Earle
Me:  
Let me get this straight.  You mean I, by myself, am going to teach the female reproductive system to eleven twelve-year-old girls?  Are you kidding me?  They're all going to laugh, I just know it; it's going to be chaos.  And, what if they ask questions?  What if they don't listen to me?  What if they do listen to me? . . . more

Blog Reviews: The Results of
Random Acts of Websurfing
by Tim Dyke
You will notice that few of my recommendations deal explicitly with education issues.  I am assuming that readers of FacultyShack define the word "education" broadly.  While I have checked out some teaching blogs, few of them appeal to me.  I am the type of person who loves to go to movies about teaching but who often finds himself disappointed by the way my profession is depicted on screen. The same applies to my experience in the blogosphere. . . . more

Stuckness
by Bruce Schauble
Perhaps more often than not, teachers try to make it easier for students to write by providing them with topics and with structures. While I think that sometimes students benefit from this kind of pedagogical support, I also believe that it's important for students to face the blank page and to learn how to solve what we might call the problem of inspiration. . . . more

Mr. Alden Facts
We created this list like the Chuck Norris list everyone talks about. It's on the Internet, which is on the computer so you may not have heard of it, but keep stomping on people. Remember when you made Cindy Bruell cry? That was cool. . . . more