or Thomas Joseph Wilson's Blog
In a past post, I wrote about how English Language Arts class is a technology class. This post will cover how English Language Arts class is a design class. Internet Trickery One day, I was scrolling through Twitter thinking I was doing everything that the app did not want me to do. I’m a millennial,…
A Teacher’s Non-American School Experience “No logos or anything like that,” said my mom. She had just explained to me that we needed to take a bunch of precautions for our “vacation.” These precautions seemed more like we were becoming refugees rather than tourists. We were not to wear anything that would pin us as…
A Technology I am the teacher of a technology class; I am an unacknowledged STEM teacher; I am an English Language Arts teacher. This is a cute way to start an essay, but, seriously, the “Arts” part does a good job of camouflaging the core of ELA. And that core is learning how to use…
Virtual Tools, Real Classroom When you are stressed, practicality is a religion. At the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, after we went totally virtual when the pandemic hit in March 2020, I was a bit unsettled. We were all starting to live with the virus. Still, the memory of full-on pandemic anxiety–memories like studiously…
Age and the “New Tech” Fallacy Fourteen years ago, when I was a student-teacher and still using a personal computer hijacked to run Linux instead of Windows, I did a lot of campaigning for Google Docs. This was wasted effort: Google conquers better than its creators. When I was officially hired as a licensed teacher,…
I got into teaching because I was an educational rebel. I was a late bloomer, and while I was a curious person interested in many things, I didn’t put much stock into formal education. I blinded myself to keeping my eyes open for anything by keeping my eyes open to only a bubble’s worth of…
Reading for a Refresh Deep into the summer, yet a few weeks before school, the professional development books I stacked on the far reaches of my home desk morph from a thing to politely ignore to a an interesting to-do list. This year, I have a book about Socratic seminars, three books about writing, one…
And, So, SARS-CoV-2 When we began our lockdown, many of us felt hemmed in with no space. We were relegated to our homes, and when we did leave, it was with a healthy dose of fear, a bottle of hand-sanitizer (if you were fortunate enough), and a homemade mask. But in this unwanted era, this…
I. The Good Of Slideshows I’m in essay grading mode. That means I’m living and breathing essays. I’m reading and reading and commenting and commenting. It’s a lot: like 151 essays a lot. In this mode, my planning bell where I have been given time to “plan” is now my “grading” bell. My sleep patterns…
I hope I’m not alone in thinking, basically all the time, that I’m just not very good at what I do. I am speaking of a very special imposter syndrome: I’m a high school English teacher. When I was young, I was lackluster in reading the classics or writing essays. I excelled in trying to…