A few weekends ago I was at a party, nursing a beer and making small talk with some people I had every intention of forgetting within the hour. One young woman mentioned she was in law school at a prestigious university in Morningside Heights.

"And what do you do?" she...

During my first year in the New York City public high school where I work as an English teacher, some 10th grade students who were hanging out in my room after class taught me about "Nutbusters."

Nutbusters is the street-name of an imported carbonated beverage that's sold in the grocery...

In this era of endless criticism and negative portrayals of educators in popular media, from Waiting for Superman to Bad Teacher, many people might wonder how we who work in the classrooms of New York's public schools feel about our students. To answer that question, here is the commencement speech...

In my ongoing campaign to persuade students from the inner city high school where I teach that George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a clever and amusing allegory (and not just a useful projectile), I recently had a conversation with one of my tenth graders that was particularly thought-provoking.

The student...

Seven years ago, when I began teaching high school in the Bronx as a NYC Teaching Fellow, I had every expectation of being the next Socrates. I had just completed a rigorous summer training program that I naïvely assumed would give me all the skills I needed to connect with...

With the official appointment of Hearst Magazines' Cathie Black as the new chancellor of NYC schools this past week (and, concurrently, Joel Klein's departure to NewsCorp, which just purchased the lion's share of educational software giant Wireless Generation), there's been plenty of discussion about the role that wealthy executives can...

Unless you've been in a cave since last week, you know by now that Mayor Bloomberg named Cathleen Black, chairman of Hearst Magazines, to the position of Chancellor of NYC schools. And, if you were paying attention, you've noticed that Cathleen Black's résumé contains a glaring omission: an iota of...

This past week, the first marking period of the 2010-2011 school year came to a close. In NYCDOE high schools, the year is divided into six terms: three for the first semester, and three for the second. Students receive report cards six times a year. However, only two of these...

As a New York City teacher in the middle of the first marking period, I've been swamped this week by schoolwork -- grading, planning, tutoring kids for the SATs they took this past Saturday, etc. This apparently has not been true of either Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein, as they...