5E Day, 2011 version

So, I’m still thinking about 5E Day. (see earlier posts here and here). I followed the same format as before. I showed the Daniel Pink book trailer video for Drive which asks “what is your sentence?”. I gave some examples. I allowed about a week of think time. I waited. Once again, great success. This [...]

What kind of a teacher am I?

So, I’ve been thinking about what kind of teacher I am. There are lots of option here. Some folks go for the grandmother or avuncular role. Others do the absent-minded professor thing. There are the mean/scary teachers and the cool teachers. The thing is, what if the way you see yourself is different from the [...]

Class Visitors

So, I’ve been thinking about what happens when visitors are in the classroom. On Wednesday I had visitors from outside the school. Dr. Thomas Lickona from SUNY  Cortland’s Center for the 4th and 5th Rs came with a student of his from Japan. They were coming to look at the character education program at our [...]

First Day of School 2011

So, I’ve been thinking about how I haven’t posted anything here in a really long time. I’ll try to write about that later. But, today was the first day of school. Besides going over the boring basic stuff, we made labels for our cubbies, listened to this Yoyo Ma tune for a little dancing, and [...]

5E Day, Update

So, I’ve been thinking about our class climate. In the beginning of the year I had what I called “5E Day” with my class, which was loosely based on George Couros’ Identity day. (Read about it here and about its impact here.) One of the comments to my description of the resulting class tone wondered [...]

Game On!

So, I’ve been thinking about the great conversation I had with my class yesterday. It was the kind of conversation we don’t usually have until a lot later in the year. I’ve been thinking about why it went so well. First let me tell you what my definition of “going well” is. In 5th grade [...]

My Version of Identity Day Update 1

So, I’ve been thinking about my class version of George Couros’ “Identity Day.” I heard him describe it at part of the Reform Symposium. (Catch the archived version here.) Let me give a little background. I showed this video as a start to our conversation about ourselves. The video is a book trailer for Daniel [...]