Yo Mista!

"I'm sure you have some pretty wicked stories." I was eating brunch at a dim sum restaurant recently with a large group of friends and friends of friends. My wife was telling someone about my career change from banker to teacher, which prompted the quote above. "Pretty wicked stories" - these words really got me thinking about a story I'd been wanting to write, but couldn't because I didn't know if he would be okay with it. "He" being Kareem, a former student of mine, now in college, but whom I've written about on this blog before (see here , here and here ). After brunch, I wrote Kareem an e-mail asking if I could write this particular story. He wrote back, "Go ahead, put it all out there lol." Three years ago, I had the pleasure to teach algebra to then 17-year old Kareem. When I first met him, he immediately struck me as an intelligent, motivated student with a lot of depth and personality. Here was someone you just co...

I've pushed off writing this for a while, but I think it's time I just say it: I'm leaving my high school to teach somewhere else next year. In the spring of 2009, I left investment banking because I wasn't feeling fulfilled. I was miserable, pathetic and without passion. Teaching high school the last three years has offered me something different, something I'd never experienced. I didn't just feel fulfilled teaching, I felt passionate. It was honorable, righteous and ridiculously challenging. This was a job where you couldn't just do the same thing over and over again everyday, it required adaptation, improvisation and commitment. I began my first teaching year at a transfer school also in it's first year, serving 17-21 year old students from all over New York City. We operated our small school within a larger high school complex and we shared this space with three other schools (one of which would phase out). I began my three-year journey with...

I saw this nifty graphic on a blog  this morning and decided to re-post it in honor of Regents testing going on in high schools across New York state for the next two weeks. May the test Gods be with you.

The idea and privilege of "tenure" in public education has garnered a lot of attention as of late. Most people who have never worked in education a single day in their lives seem to feel that tenure is unfair and teachers should work under the same expectations that other "regular" and hard-working Americans work under. At least, that's the narrative being presented in the media. Three years ago, I would have agreed, but I didn't know any better. At the college and university level,  tenure  is difficult to obtain and can take 4-8 years. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from what I think I know, the candidate usually needs to have published some sort of research and have demonstrated a strong teaching record, among other things. Before becoming a high school teacher, I understood why tenure was necessary at the college and university level as it protected academics when they published work that went against the mainstream, and thereby prevented profes...

It's a long weekend in the U.S. So, during the barbeques and fireworks, read Diane Ravitch's book review of former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's book entitled, US Education Reform and National Securit y. If you're interested in the future of education in this country, it's worth it.

In our transfer school, it's very difficult to find a teacher willing to chaperone students on a field trip, most likely because a day with our kids inside the building is already pretty taxing. Last weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to chaperone this year's 3-day senior class trip to Virginia Beach, where students would get two full days of amusement parks, an evening of go-carting, and one beach day. In all honesty, I was really expecting the worst from the kids, based on how they behave in school. A part of me knew we were all going to get sent home, probably on the first day. Man, I was wrong. The charter bus was scheduled to leave at 5 AM sharp Friday morning. I woke up at 4 AM, threw on some clothes, grabbed my already-packed bag and hopped into the subway tired as hell. I was expecting to arrive a little before 5 AM to a half-empty bus and a stressed-out field trip organizer trying to figure out where our kids were. I got on the bus at 4:50 AM and was shocked to...

So, I finally caved in and joined Twitter. Before you judge me, it's not my own personal Twitter account, it's for the blog. At least this will allow me to more efficiently document my own thoughts and notable quotes from within the trenches of my high school. Follow this blog on Twitter: @ Yo_Mista