Welcome to my blog!

Thanks for visiting my blog space, a place to exchange ideas about the challenges and triumphs of teaching adolescent students. If you are a teacher of adolescent students, then you will be familiar with the "kids in the hall", the ones who rarely seem to make it through a day without spending some independent time in the hallway. These are the students I want to talk about, because they are the ones who have taught me the most. I plan to tell you stories about actual students I have taught (pseudonyms will be used) and what I have learned from them. It is my hope that you will learn from them, too, and perhaps share your experiences back with me.

I was not typically a kid-in-the-hall, except for a short period between grades 5 and 6 when I got bored in school and looked for trouble of the worst kind: pre-teen girl drama! At that time, I did spend some recesses outside of my principal's office copying dictionary pages- clever!- to atone for some 'ostracizing' (I did look it up, Miss Z!) that I may or may not have done with my free time. Other than that, though, I was a model student who loved school. My brother was not so lucky. He was your typical 'kid-in-the-hall'. I'm dedicating this blog to my brother, Gavin, for whom I wish there were more teachers willing to make their classroom a place where he felt he belonged.

There's the bell...