Conversation with a student yesterday: Student: “Mr. Kantor, I don’t have any ideas for song lyrics. What do I even talk about? Where can I get more ideas?” Me: You need to read more, watch great movies, great TV shows. Those are probably your best places to start in how

In my 11th grade US History class we read an excerpt from Common Sense and a student was mind-blown at this part: “[Passive men] look somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, Come, come, we shall be friends again for all

My girlfriend has always thought I was exaggerating when I I said I learn nothing in my grad school education classes The past few weeks she has sat next time to me when I had class on zoom so she has been able to see what goes on in my classes She said to me last night when

If you're a teacher and use chat gpt to generate the work for your students You cannot get mad when students use it to generate responses to your questions If you don't have the decency to write even a paragraph yourself for students to use as an exemplar You can't complain

A mom whose teen son I tutor called me out of the blue yesterday asking if I had ever heard of Alpha School I told her yes and asked her how she heard about it and she said she overheard a few moms talking about Alpha at the grocery store I asked her if she would send her son

My girlfriend has had absolutely no exposure to alternative schooling growing up except for one distant relative who was homeschooled (it was not done well) So when I tell her we will be homeschooling our kids she always has the typical "pushbacks": -What about socialization?

I used to tutor a 14 year old teen boy who had a cow-themed band When I asked why and how come there weren’t any other themes, he said: “We don’t know what to write music about. None of us have had any bad things happen to us. We have all lived good lives so far. So we just

My last semester during undergrad I had a creative writing professor, Ms. Goodman, who was just like this She gave us the most thorough feedback and constantly had us refine our work so we could get better Her passion was just like this teacher and the care she had for us was

My younger sister is a junior in college and is doing a group project in one of her psychology classes One of her group members doesn’t speak English... at all... not a word She doesn’t contribute anything to the assignments and all of the students in my sister's group pander

A well-intentioned parent can not only be their child's teacher, but do a damn good job as well One of the many reasons why I feel this why: There are 40 or so teachers in my school I asked each one when the last time they read some ed research or tried to expand on their

-Have high standards -Hold them accountable -Help them master the basics so they can move onto more complex topics -Help them see they are capable of doing great things Will make any kid/teen want to learn Bonus: -Show interest in the things they care about -Be personable -Be

Kids and their pure non-understanding of social norms will always make me laugh Yesterday I was sitting at a park talking with a friend and a young boy, around 3 or 4 years old, was eating a brownie He went up to a random teen who was skateboarding and offered him a piece of

A strict, dull, “uninspiring” traditional school Where students graduate proficient in reading, math, etc. Is better than a "fun", engaging, or radical school Where students do fun stuff but don't leave knowing how to read, write, think, or do math well

My girlfriend's cousin is having great success with some very LIGHT homeschooling for her daughter Not pictured here but they only do 20, give or take, minutes a day (not always consistently) Great example that parents can do a lot for their kids before they get to school

I recently did an activity with my US History students where they had to create their own country A few things I had them do: create 10 laws, 10 rights, the school system They worked in groups and something I noticed was: All the groups of boys focused a lot of their time on

The current valedictorian of the school I teach at is VERY serious about his MMA training Him and his friends train and are the most well mannered and disciplined students in the school by far At the muay thai gym I train at, one of the coaches is a high school senior and he is

My NYC voting experience: Walk into voting place I hand the lady my ID "Oh I don't need this--just your address" Me: How do you know I'm not lying? Lady: Well... its an honor system Me: That seems like a bad idea Lady: 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️🤷

A month ago, a teen I tutor introduced his 99 year old grandfather to chat gpt After playing around with it for an hour or so, he said: "Its hard for me to wrap my head around that there isn't a person in there talking with me" Apparently he's obsessed and uses it hours a day

Talking with another teacher about why we should teach the classics: Teacher: "Classics are not that important and honestly kind of overrated" (they said something like this - I'm paraphrasing) Me: I couldn't disagree more. Aside from the academic benefits students get from

I asked one of the homeschooled teens I tutor what he loves most about homeschooling and what is an assumption people make about homeschooling that is wrong His response: "I love homeschooling because it is at my house. I enjoy having my teacher as my mom. And because you don’t