Shannon Costello

Laura is told that she will have to be a school teacher by Pa.  She is not into the idea, but adopts it as her own as a way to make money so that Mary can go to the college for the blind.  She sees no other money-making option.  (Interestingly, Grace and Carrie end up [...]

I have secretly developed the idea that my classes are important.  I get grumpy when students miss them.  And yet there really are more important things in life!
Almanzo Wilder gets to skip school for important things like hauling wood, training oxen, and cutting ice.  Not a very high priority on education…I start to think.  Hello?  Heating [...]

Every so often in America a kid shows up at a school and attempts to shoot someone.
In Malone, NY, a teacher was attacked by a group of older students.  Bill Ritchie and a few of his friends beat the teacher up so badly that he later died of his injuries.  The next term, the teacher’s [...]

Once I was expecting to teach a class that I had reason to believe would not be in a learning sort of mood.  Worse, we were not going to be meeting in our usual location, a move that would further inspire chaos.
Here is what I did to prepare.
1)  I created a check-list of exactly what [...]

Laura’s teacher is never named.  She is just Teacher.
Shannon’s practical side:  Bet she couldn’t remember her name.
Shannon’s deeply cynical side:  An early step in the process of dehumanizing teachers.
I’m voting with the practical side.
It was a lot easier than in terms of curriculum.  Everybody, everywhere uses the same three books.  You are placed based on [...]

It seems to me that the need for change in education comes more from the change in culture, particularly the way children are raised- than anything else.
Laura Ingalls Wilder is too young for school in this first book- not that there is a school around.  She plays a lot and she helps her Ma and [...]

We all growl like bears

Note:  authorities are looking for clues in the stabbing death of a two-year-old electric pencil sharpener.  The victim was discovered when a teacher in the building heard him whirring in pain.  She noticed the paper-clip end protruding from an opening and administered first aid by unplugging the victim.  The pencil sharpener was pronounced dead several [...]