Welcome.

The contents of this blog are intended to document, describe, and reflect upon my experience working in an underperforming school in an impoverished Northeastern American city. I will do my best to change names and uphold a necessary anonymity for my district, school, colleagues, and students. I often find myself telling stories to loved ones about how my day was or how my week went. These stories cover a range of emotions and a great number of topics, some positive and some negative. Through writing on this blog, I hope to be able to stay more balanced in my depiction of my experiences rather than leaning in any specific direction to cater to my audience. Over the past two years I have felt that many of my experiences were noteworthy, and I intend to keep a record of the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly, in this centralized location. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my thoughts and I hope that others can gain a more informed apprecation of the conditions those who choose to work in this environment deal with on a regular basis.

My personal background will not be a central focus of this blog, but in order for readers to have a perception of me as a person, I will provide a bit of context. This is my second year as a teacher and my third year working in this city. I was a University graduate student in my student teaching and practicum in my first year in this district. I earned a Bachelors Degree double majoring in Political Science and History and also have a Masters Degree in Education. I am of Greek and Irish descent and grew up as a part of a middle class, Catholic family in a predominately white and wealthy suburb.

***Disclaimer: the title "straighteducator" is by no means intended to be heterosexist or homophobic. I consider myself to be very gay-positive and an avid supporter of GLBTQ issues. The title is in reference to my belief system regarding drug use and a label I have used to describe myself for several years. If you'd like to read about it, wikipedia seems to briefly outline it in a fairly acceptable manner. ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_edge