This week’s band of the week is Phoenix. Phoenix is a indie rock band from France. The band was formed all the way back in 1996 and released their first album titled “United” in 2000. The band has released five records in the last nine years, most popular of which has been their latest titled…

I wanted to take this opportunity to give all of our visitors a bit of a preview of what to expect this upcoming year with our classroom and blog. I have compiled a top ten list of my most popular post from the previous year. Please take a moment to check out some of our…

After nearly 200 post and nearly 10,000 visits at on BlogSpot….I will closing the doors on my Blogger account. However there is good news! Our class blog will be moving to EduBlogs for the 09-10 school year. You can find myself and my class at https://jkmcclung.edublogs.orgI will continue my regular posting and class streaming at…

With July in the rear view mirror and a brand new school year just ahead later this month, today I officially began getting my game face on to prepare for the upcoming year. Due to the fact that I have switched schools over the summer, that means I have to move into another new classroom…

Earlier this year, Mr. Lamshed and his students held a event called Clippers for Cancer. Clippers for Cancer is a fundraiser event in which students raised money for the Child Cancer Foundation of Australia. To say that this fundraiser was a success would be a understatement, his class raised nearly $2,000 for this worthy cause….and…

This past week I have been involved in several discussions about how to build a democratic society and what role education systems should play in this process. During these conversations I was introduced to the work of Deb Meier. Ms. Meier is often often considered the founder of the small school movement and is an…

A well known perk of being a teacher is of course the summer breaks. While I have been enjoying my break, and rubbing it in my non-teacher friend’s face, I have actually been keeping quite busy. I thought I would take this opportunity to make a quick update of my summer happenings thus far. Continuing…

I am really excited to share with everyone a blog check that quite frankly…..should have been done a looooong time ago. SMS Guys Read is a blog that is composed by Mr. Hutchinson, “slightly unhinged teacher”, and a group of middle school students. This group of students can easily be identified by their trucker like…

I’ve got a problem. In today’s climate of education, it can be very easy to focus the short comings of teachers, and students. I feel like many of the educators I know in my life, have a grim outlook on the direction that education is heading. In conversations, I often find myself being the person…

….wait a minute, wrong top ten list…. A few weeks ago, I asked for suggestions on what were the blog post highlights from the 08′-09′ school year. I posted this question on my blog and also on my sixth grade social network that several of my students still use over the summer. I received some…