April Coker, Author

Tag: school

  • TEACHER TUESDAY: TST

    This short week before Thanksgiving holidays can be a nightmare for unsuspecting or unprepared schoolteachers.  I know.  I was one.  No matter how well I had prepared my lessons or how good my intentions were, it was all for naught until I realized one fact.   Whether I liked it or not, agreed with it…

  • TEACHER TUESDAY: Teaching is spooky these days!

    Tomorrow is Halloween and the natives (students) are getting restless.  I know this because I spent many a Halloween doing my best to keep my young charges busy as they squirmed like they had ants in their pants.  And they were teenagers!   Before standardized testing and its ensuing universal lesson plans where all the…

  • TEACHER TUESDAY: More tales from the darkside. . .

    Just kidding. . .not really the darkside.  That phrase just has a ring to it, although some days in the classroom or school were dark for a lot of my students at different times.  For a young, inexperienced schoolteacher who was about as confident as a tightrope walker without a net, there were dark times…

  • TEACHER TUESDAY: Trials of a young teacher. . .

    When I started my teaching career fresh out of college in 1982, I was 23 and totally ignorant of the challenges I would be facing for the next 30 years.  What first-year teacher isn’t?  And thank the good Lord we can’t see into the future.  If I had I might have run screaming the other…

  • TEACHER TUESDAY: Nitty Gritty Time

    As a teacher you have probably settled into a comfortable routine by this time of year.  You know the names of your students, or at least most of them–quite a feat if you have over 130 like I did last year.  You are now familiar with the unique personalities of each of your classes and…