When the weather begins to cool and the leaves begin to change, I find I become a different kind of cook. I bring my big pots and pans out of storage and carefully select ingredients that will make a delicious soup or stew and fill my house with the aroma of warmth and comfort. I pluck the last of the basil from the garden and instead of mixing it with oil and vinegar to marinade chicken breast that I will cook on the grill, I stir it into a pot of ripe red tomatoes and mix in oregano and… Continue

Today, I’ve been working on organizing and outlining some of the ideas that I have for what I dream will one day become a book for teachers about teaching literacy.  Broad topic, I know.  But right now, I’m in the gathering and envisioning stage of my writing process.  I’m relishing going back through the volumes that I have been collecting over the years and reacquainting with my old thoughts and experiences as a teacher.  I find myself making notes in the margins and asking myself…

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I read. I read a lot. In fact, I resolved in 2011 to keep track of just how much I read. I have three categories of books that I keep track of, the first being “Personal/Leisure Reading.” These are the books that I read to feed my own need for personal growth and enjoyment and include titles like How to Hug a Porcupine and The Gift of an Ordinary Day. Since January 1, I have read 15 books in this category.



The second category that I keep track of is “Professional Reading.” This is… Continue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE

Over the course of the last week, I began to notice the days have been getting shorter.  The mornings are cooler.  And the shelves of Target are stocked with boxes of Crayola crayons on sale for forty cents.  I don’t know when all of this happened but I realized with summer fading into the horizon, I better get out there and enjoy its final days before it completely disappears.  So,…

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A few days ago, I watched a series of videos produced by PBS and the New York State Education Department aimed at helping educators understand the Common Core Standards. I watched intently as David Coleman, one of the Core’s contributing authors and John B. King, commissioner of Education in New York, outlined the six primary instructional shifts the core seeks to… Continue

In my basement, we have an old dresser.  If you were to open any one of the six drawers of this dresser you would have to tug a little because each drawer is filled to the brim and overflowing with Lego.  But that’s not the only place you’ll find Lego in my house.  Bins of Lego can be found tucked behind chairs and stacked neatly (and not-so-neatly) on bookshelves in every room.  And of course, if you look in the heaters and other small crevices of my home, you will find errant pieces and…

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In Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation, he tells the story of a nineteenth century French obstetrician, Stephane Tarnier, who noticed a chicken incubator on a visit to the Paris Zoo.  As he watched the chickens toddle around in the warmth of the device, he thought about the number of babies he delivered that had died.  Those babies had been born too soon and as he watched, he wondered if an incubator was the answer to this problem.  With…

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