One Year as a Teacher

The key to survival: Savor the triumphs
A reporter took a leave of absence from his reporting duties during the 2001-02 school year to teach seventh-grade language arts, and he's written five articles about the experience. This link goes to the final article, which also provides access to the previous ones. It's quite personal, and paints a vivid portrait of life in a junior high classroom. I had an emotional reaction to it, recounting the nebulous rewards, inevitable frustration and exhaustion of my first experiences teaching kids. I'd recommend reading this to anyone who thinks teachers are overpaid or have it too cushy with their two months of holidays. Larry Slonaker has also written some articles about school technology, but I was interested in the fact that technology never comes up as a factor in his account of teaching. It's just way down the priority list, assuming that decent computers/connections are even available in the school he was teaching in. Thanks to Gwen for the link.