The Plight of a Red State Teacher

I have watched the direction in which our GOP dominated legislature and governor are leading the state regarding education and I am feeling rather hopeless. It’s not just in my state, but public education is in trouble in every red state in the union.

6 Ways Schools Are Failing Your Kids

I’ve been teaching now for over 20 years. I teach with love and rigor, have had a lot of success with helping students achieve greatness, but am often frustrated with the things that schools think are so important about education. In my experience, these are the things for which most schools are serious: Testing –

Oklahoma Removes Ten Commandments Because Government Broke Most Of Them

Last week the granite edifice upon which the biblical ten commandments had been etched was removed from the front lawn of the capital building by order of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.  Sure, the news services have told all of us the reason (i.e. separation of church and state), yet the real reason is pretty plain. The

Oklahoma Education Rally: Were We Heard?

Yesterday I attended what is becoming an annual event in my state: the Oklahoma Education Rally.  I made several signs, but in the end I didn’t take them, choosing to go with my friend Michael Dean (featured on this week’s podcast) as he talked to our representatives, and then live tweet the entire experience.  I didn’t

Why Is It So Difficult To Write Well?

I’m nearly halfway through the backstory material for my current WIP.  I’m writing a series of books tentatively titled The Five Rims Series and try as I might, I’m going to create a Tolkienesque place, a (most likely) vain attempt to give my setting a richness that will hopefully translate to a sweeping epic.  I’m just

Experts Say Oklahomans Will Vote Republican By Default

Today is the Republican and Democratic primary across Oklahoma, but experts think Oklahomans will vote straight party Republican by default in November.  Researchers and political scientists at the University of Phoenix have come to the conclusion that Oklahoma should probably have a machine at polling stations that simply votes straight party Republican when each citizen

Short Film Illustrates Oklahoma Educator’s Plight

A friend of mine brought the following short film to my attention.  It is called “The Expert”, and is representative of what teachers in the state of Oklahoma are faced with each day.  If one sees the two women in the film as our legislature, the man at the head of the table as our

An AP Teacher’s Thoughts on AP

I have thought for some time about Advanced Placement and its worth in an education system that is increasingly using the internet to educate students.  I think more and more about the worth of Advanced Placement courses, as to whether they are useful anymore, and recently I have been going through some soul searching about

The Unseen Connection of Reading to Writing

I am an English teacher by trade, and once in a while I make an observation about my students that could be the basis for a study about writing students everywhere. In an article entitled I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read Francine Prose posits that the reason that students have an aversion to reading or simply

An Essay

The following is the essay I wrote for the Teacher of the Year selection process.  Again, I thank all of my fellow teachers who voted for me. To Emulate the Gardener Henry Adams, President Lincoln’s ambassador to London, once said “a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops”. Think of all