Upstander Reflections

At my school we have a pretty tight discipline system considering we are a public school. We don’t call our discipline system “discipline,” though, we call it “culture.” It’s kind of like how in the US we call our military apparatus The Department of Defense, when most of what they do would be considered offense. The US does this because, in the end, the main goal of the DOD is to defend the nation. At school the logic is the same. In the end, our main goal is to have a positive school culture. There are countless other things our country does to defend the nation, and there are countless other things our school does to create a positive culture. However, the backbone of our nation’s security is the DOD, and the backbone of our school’s culture is the discipline system.    The DOD looking rather offensive. Our discipline (culture) system runs on demerits. There is a long list of things students can get demerits for. It ranges from one demerit for less serious i...

There was a lot to think about this week but I have addressed many of these issues already. Trump made a baseless, outlandish claim that Obama wiretapped him during the election. In my “Helpless” post I wrote about the confusion of dealing with a president that doesn’t seem to be working within the same reality as everyone else. The budget proposal was released in more detail this week but I already voiced my concerns about that in the “Diplomacy” post from a few weeks ago. Another travel ban was ordered and then blocked, which I addressed in my “Pride” post. I could always expand further on these topics but it was my thoughts on expansion that actually got me thinking that maybe it would be better to break things down rather than expand on them further. This is how I arrived at this week’s topic. Room 45.   What if Donald Trump was a high school teacher like me? What would his classroom be like? If our public school system is a microcosm of our society, as we say it is, then ...

There has been a lot of talk about equality lately. Racial equality. Gender equality. Income equality. These are the big three. I am not here to pretend that there are not more inequalities or that the big three are not weaved together like a nice Irish sweater. Of course they are. However, I do think that there is a part of the equality discussion that we don't talk about. That will be my topic for the week. First lady Melania Trump spoke about equality, freedom and the responsibility women have to help each other achieve success at an invitation-only luncheon honoring International Women's Day Wednesday at the White House. CNN Article Before we start, let’s agree on a couple things: We want equality. There are limited resources. If my classroom has 30 students in it and I want to reward the students for their work in the class with a percentage of a delicious chocolate pie. How can I do that? Some students are going to fail and some are going to do great...

Let’s start with an update from last week: On Tuesday morning the student who was missing did not show up to school like he was supposed to. This was very concerning and sent people scrambling to figure out what was going on. We eventually got a hold of him and he came to to school about noon. He had arrived back in the states earlier that morning from Mexico. The school administration has been very clear with the student that we are here to help but the only information the family has shared with us is that there was a family emergency. We still don’t know exactly what happened and probably never will. At this point we’re just glad to have him back. One of the pillars of my class is group work. I call it diplomacy. It’s had many names over the years but in the past few years I finally landed on diplomacy. I like the term because it has two purposes. First, It guides students on how I expect them to work with each other and secondly, it helps them understand international re...