My friend Dan points out that there are over thirteen varieties of the same pretzel. This doesn't even include stadium soft pretzels. Rather, he is referring to the ways that manufactures create pretzels - mini twists, large (thin) twists, fat twists (they look like deyhdrated bagels), thick logs, thin sticks, long sticks, short sticks, pretzel ...

I love how Socrates always ends his dialogues unanswered.  The end seems to be a multifacted mystery rather than a three-point outline.  Similarly, throughout the gospels, Jesus tells parables that confound and confuse his audience.  It seems counterintuitive that two of the greatest teachers of all times were both difficult to ...

When I was a kid, I went through a phase of designing baseball stadiums. It was at the time that they built the new Comiskey Park and I felt like it was an injustice to the old. When other kids had idealistic dreams of playing first base for the Giants, I had dreams of designing their stadium when they would eventually replace Candlestick Park. ...

Sometimes I feel as if I don't fit into the system of education.  I wonder if I am just crazy or if I am part of a silent minority (perhaps even majority) who feel the same way.  So, I am making a list of paradigm shifts that I think many teachers, administrators and politicians need to make. I hate lists, but I really felt like turning ...

Ever since I was little, I had an easy time writing.  For some reason, the words came to me quickly, with little need to learn an organizational structure.  A vocabulary was like a candy store, where two things that were virtually identical had slightly different flavors and textures and I enjoyed the candy store - not in the sense of ...

    I’m sitting at my computer reading an editorial for grad school.  The man is trying to justify why teaching is a science and not an art.  I find it insulting, but I am engaged. I can tell that he wants to believe that, if teachers received the perfect training then anyone could be a teacher. I take a time-out to write ...

I am embaressed to admit it, but I like Shakira - and not in the way that most men usually think about Shakira.  No, it's not the rock hard abs and belly dancing that impresses me.  Instead, I actually like her music. (For the record, I also like chick flicks, but I am not metro)  My wife left the cd playing in the car and I skipped ...

Solitude is missing from current educational system.  Students, while they are at school, must plough through book work, handouts and lectures in a ridiculous pace.  Everything is disjointed and disconnected, often taught in subjects that are irrelevant to their lives.  Last year, after weeks of drought, it finally rained - and not ...

After reading the answers from Bell Work, I feel confident that my students know the causes of World War II.  We engage in a dodge ball type game that enables them to see imperialism and colonialism.  I allow them to break into alliances to teach the alliance system.  We discuss this and then move onto the Treaty of Versailles ...

Twenty students claim their favorite seats within minutes of the lunch bell ringing.  The skeptic in me initially assumes that it is a first week rush, a desire to get out of the one-hundred and ten degree heat. The students will find out that our Student Leadership Meeting is actually pretty difficult and the numbers will diminish.  I ...