By Coleen Armstrong

Teacher, talk-show host, and author of The Truth About Teaching: What I Wish the Veterans Had Told Me

In January, Tony was sitting in his high school English class. He was a little worried about his future.

Just a year later, he was standing at white-gloved attention as a member of the U.S. Navy Presidential Honor Guard at the Inaugural Ceremony in Washington D.C. At one point he was positioned a mere three feet from the President.
 
Tony once had almost zero self-confidence. He constantly doubted himself. No matter how many speeches I made concerning his enormous potential, he stared back as if to inquire, “What potential?”

RAPSA contributor earns county honors

Alex Kajitani, RAPSA contributor and middle school math teacher, has earned honors as one of San Diego County’s Teachers of the Year.  Using a blend of music and real world applications, Mr. Kajitani helps his students grasp mathematical concepts with ease.

Read more about his strategies working with at-risk students in the “Best Practices” section.

By Coleen Armstrong

The way we teach writing has changed. Once teachers assigned compositions, gave their classes two-week deadlines, and then said in effect, “Good luck!” Now we encourage students to percolate, cluster, and draft. Then revise, revise, revise, resulting in the submission of several different versions of the same essay before handing in a final copy.
 
I explained the writing “process” to my senior English classes during the first week of school. They were decidedly skeptical, especially when I told them that although I’d suggest plenty of ideas, the final choice of topic was up to them.
 
“This is a way to give voice and meaning,” I said, “to your own personal experiences.”
 
Yeah. Sure.
 
One of my most stubborn holdouts was Pete. He didn’t use the allotted work time. He didn’t turn in a first draft. I asked why.

By Coleen Armstrong

The girl caught sight of me from across the hallway and raised her hand in an animated wave. Hurrying to my side, she spoke breathlessly.

“You won’t believe how much homework I have this year,” she exclaimed. “An English assignment due tomorrow, a social studies quiz on Friday...” She rattled on for a couple of moments more before glancing at the clock above us. “Oops, gotta run. Bye!”

I was left standing alone, shaking my head in bewilderment.
 
There would have been nothing puzzling about the encounter, had it occurred with anyone else except Marcy. She had been a student in my class the previous year––and we had not, to put it mildly, gotten along.