New Orleans
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Listing, while shopping
New Orleans offers ample opportunity for St. Patrick’s Day weekend revelry – no big surprise: any given Thursday here offers the same. But for those of us of the middle age persuasion who no longer fit the ‘party animal’ designation, there are other, quite viable (and cheaper) options via which to get our ‘party on’.… Continue reading
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Disguised as good ideas
It is Halloween season, and as always, I hope to be invited to a costume party. So far, my mailbox remains Charlie-Brown-on-Valentine’s-Day empty, but I am hopeful. Being a positive-thinking, proactive kind of guy, some costume ideas are definitely in order so I am not caught totally off guard – though the thought that, should… Continue reading
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Keeping Score
With hurricane Harvey now hitting Texas, those of us in New Orleans have wary eyes pointed westward – and still, we keep on truckin’. It’s what we have to do, in the classroom and out of it. Looking back at this piece, all the apprehension of watching Isaac had to have an impact on our… Continue reading
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Shades of Black and White
It was late summer, 1979, and my friend Johnny was dying. Our star fullback in high school, heavyweight wrestling champ, all around BMOC, sat there before me, slumped, in a wheelchair in his parent’s Denver living room. His once chiseled, athletic frame was basically down to half of the 215 pounds he burst through opposing… Continue reading
A Teacher in New Orleans, Characters that helped shape mine, Philosophication, Relationships, Teaching, Uncategorized, Writing and writersblack and white student friendships, black friends, class of 1977, classroom behavior, classroom oddities, Denver South Class of ’77, Denver South High School, Education, high schools, inner city high school students, inner city schools, Johnny Wilkins, learning, New Orleans, perspective, public schools, racial issues in school, racial reconciliation, teacher, Teaching, teaching high school English, TeachNOLA, writers and writing, youth -
Schoolyear Homestretch: They Know Not of What They Speak. Or Write.
The discussion in my predominately black, tenth grade classroom was focused on racism. We have been working our way through the book A Lesson Before Dying, a wonderful 1994 Pulitzer nominee about a rural Louisiana black man sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Set in 1947, the story pre-dates the Civil Rights… Continue reading
Book report, books, classroom behavior, classroom foibles, correcting student work, creative writing, Education, grammar issues, high schools, inner city schools, learn, learning, library books, Lucker, Martin Luther King, mishearing things, New Orleans, parent teacher conferences, parents and teachers, public schools, racism, Rosa Parks, school librarians, schools, student work, students, students and teachers, teacher, Teaching, teaching creative writing, TeachNOLA, truth is stranger than fiction, writing -
Conversation
“How many students of yours have been killed?” Her tone was inquisitive, non-invasive. “A dozen” I replied softly, taking a deep hit on my bottle of Coke. She sighed, audibly. “At least nine” I clarified. “Nine that I have seen the obit on, story on the news, newspaper article about. Nine.” I was running through… Continue reading
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Through different eyes
Another Mardi Gras is in the books. Friday night before Fat Tuesday, the forty days of revelry preceding Lent are in high gear. My wife and I hadn’t been to the Friday night parades in a few years, but we had a friend marching in one of them, so we decided it would be a… Continue reading
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“Texting, one, two…really?”
For those of you who have followed our saga as teachers the past eight-plus years, and for those who have read my book (‘Do You Know What it Means, to Teach new Orleans?’ http://lrd.to/do-you-know-what-it-means ) know that we have our share of offbeat stories to tell. Classroom stories and oddities galore, to be sure, but… Continue reading
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It’s all the rage
A few years back, prompted by the writings of my erstwhile high school seniors at the time, I coined a new phrase for a phenomenon I never knew existed. Two-plus years later, the spectacle I envisioned then came back to my classroom (an entirely different locale and temperament than where the original story occurred) via… Continue reading
classroom behavior, classroom oddities, Education, high schools, inner city high school students, inner city schools, learning, McDonalds, New Orleans, perspective, public schools, road rage and Sprite Rage, Ronald McDonald, Ronald McDonald arrested, Sprite, Sprite Rage, students, teacher, Teaching, teaching high school English, TeachNOLA, writers and writing, youth -
Two weeks, in the books
A full ten days of the school year have now concluded. Having been hired to come in for second semester last year, this is my first full year at my current high school; it has been an interesting perspective of getting new information along with new-new teachers and staff, but with the advantage of having… Continue reading