My blogs

Blogs I follow

Gender	Male
Occupation	Teacher
Location	Los Angeles, California, United States
Introduction	I have been a teacher in Los Angeles for more than 27 years. I teach the old-fashioned way -by ignoring standardized test scores. We read. We fall in love with reading. We think, we talk, and we write about what we read. Then we read, think, and talk about what we wrote in order to improve all four. When I taught gifted/high achieving students in West L.A., I was a Superteacher. My students' scores were so high, LAUSD called me in to do curriculum development. I was twice named a Johns Hopkins Teaching Fellow. Today my children have no such advantages. They wake up every morning in their gang-ridden, drug-infested neighborhoods at five a.m. to catch the bus by six. I am no longer a Superteacher. Now I'm just an asshole with the test scores to prove it.
Interests	Education, Travel, Politics, Religion, World Music, Literature, Chess
Favorite movies	Apocalypse Now
Favorite music	Talking Heads, Manu Chau, Fela Kuti, Lady Gaga
Favorite books	The Catcher in the Rye, Crime and Punishment