Certifiable?
Emmet Rosenfeld was an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. He had 13 years of experience as a teacher and writer when he started this blog. In this opinion blog, he chronicled his experiences as he worked toward certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: certification & licensing.
Education
Opinion
Tale of the Tape
I talk a lot. That’s one thing I realized when I watched the video of me leading a classroom discussion on Michener’s Chesapeake this week. At least, I talk a lot louder and clearer than any student in the room. Years of projecting my voice over noisy groups of kids seems to have left me with a positively operatic larynx.
Education
Opinion
Caliban + 1
This Friday, my tenth graders presented final projects on the Tempest for an assignment I called “Caliban + 1.” Leading up to it, groups had taken notes on selected motifs during our reading of the play. Each group then had to select a single moment that involved Caliban and one or more other characters, and design a stage production around that scene to emphasize their assigned motif using costumes, lights and all the magic of the theater they could muster.
Education
Opinion
1, 2, 3
Oops. In obsessively writing 714 posts about Entry Four, I forgot to mention the other three entries that comprise the portfolio, each weighted at 16 percent of the total score (Entry Four is weighted at only 12 percent; the six assessment center exercises at the end are each 6.67 or a whopping 40 percent of the total). Here’s a quick overview (remember, the standards are specific to my certification area, Early Adolescence English Language Arts).
Education
Opinion
Stormy Monday
As I drove to work one morning last week, dark clouds began to form. I was discouraged with the feedback I’d been getting about my accomplishment write-ups. Responses to my Entry Four attempts from various quarters, this blog included, have essentially been a no-nonsense chorus of so what’s.
Education
Opinion
Three Balls in the Air
Last week there was a lot going on (or was it just another week?). Homecoming fever swirled in the halls, we had our first writing groups in the graduate class that I teach at night, and there was an afternoon of work on the canoe at Mount Vernon. Below are some high points.
Education
Opinion
Caveat Liber
I’m winging it on the Latin, but what I mean to say is “Reader, beware.” Slow prose ahead.
Education
Opinion
Go and study
Thank goodness it’s raining, so at least the sun isn’t calling me out to play in the yard with the kids. I’m at the keyboard and psyching myself up to begin Entry Four. Okay, I’m back in college. It’s a 10-page paper. That’s nothing. Write fast and throw in lots of catch-phrases from the bible ( “Keep those entry standards by your keyboard for constant reference,” reminds Marybeth, from California, in a helpful comment on my last post.) I'll use the template below when writing about my accomplishments.
Education
Opinion
More Than a Boat
Davy Crockett in buckskins could have been striding through the halls at TJ last Wednesday, and not far behind him, Paul Bunyan with a double-bladed axe over his shoulder. But no, it was only Michael Sottosanti, primitive technology expert, and Mike Wilson, horse logger, two of the speakers at our “Canoe Kickoff,” an in-school field trip that introduced our tenth grade Humanities students to the year-long project to build a Native American dugout upon which we have now officially embarked.
Education
Opinion
Fore
I suck at golf. When I hit the ball at the driving range, it might fly straight up and land ten feet away, or hook meanly to the left. Sometimes it’s a grass cutter, burning along just off the ground. Every now and then I whack the thing just right and it feels like the heavens have parted. The little orb describes a beautiful arc lit by a shaft of heavenly light.
Education
Opinion
Firsts
We’ve survived the opening of school. Met our kids, issued lockers, given out homework. There was a lot of nervous energy, but things ran smoothly, and I had done enough planning over the past couple of weeks to actually feel a semblance of control. At this time of transition and fresh starts, I couldn’t help but notice some other memorable beginnings this week.
Education
Opinion
Reuse, Recycle, Reflect
I’ve reached that manic stage of pre-school preparation where I’m slapping together documents with the reckless abandon of a... well, of a teacher before the first week of school. Syllabi, letters home, program reports, field trip requests. If only I were paid by the word for this sort of week. Certain paragraphs, at a time like this, tend to get used more than once. For example, here’s a pithy one about the canoe which is more or less the abstract from the original grant proposal penned last spring:
Education
Opinion
What a Difference a Year Makes
365 not-very-simple days. At this time last year, I had just joined the faculty at a school new to me, TJHSST, but not new at all in the sense that it was stocked with 30-year veterans at the top of the public school teaching heap. You couldn’t spit without hitting a PhD or someone who was known in their field-- for running a conference say, or being a nationally recognized expert in xyz.
