Reflections of an Educator

As you enter 7th grade Social Studies class, you will find that we will be doing a lot of thinking, including assignments where you are asked to compare and contrast...in fact, you may have to complete a Venn Diagram. One topic we will study is the Boston Massacre, which took place on March 5, 1770. In the Boston Massacre, British soldiers, who were patroling American colonists in Boston because tension was rising, mistakenly fired into a crowd. Rocks were thrown, both sides were aggressive, and in the end five American colonists were killed by the British. On August 21, 2006, another Boston Massacre occurred. During this Boston Massacre, the New York Yankees swept the Boston Red Sox at home at Fenway Park in a 5-game series. The Red Sox gave a valiant effort, but in the end, the Yankees' bullpen and hitting were too much for the Red Sox. If you would like to get a head start on practicing comparing and contrasting, then consider - what similarities and differences exist between th...

I've been wicked busy, lately (yes, I'm almost a New Englander because I used "wicked," I know, I know...)...almost a month ago, I finished my last class in a program I was doing to become certified by the state to move into administration in schools. It was a year-long program, and I completed it with a "cohort" of people - meaning a small group of people who took classes together. My friends and I ended our year together with a celebration of a golfing expedition (I did not do as well as I had hoped....), and promised to get togethe r soon. I'm certainly going to miss my friends! It's probably like missing your friends from summer camp, except all these people are teachers - your worst nightmare! The very next week, I took a class with some other teachers (there were 32 of us) in Brookline, at an organization called Facing History and Ourselves ("FHAO"). The organization helps teachers understand more about human atrocities around the wo...