Author Archives: johntmurray

The Wimba Classroom was a neat resource to engage with colleagues and popcorn discussion, share ideas, and collaborate on coursework assignments. After discussion around the guided questions of refining our actionable issue, our group settled on budget cuts as a contributor for further marginalizing the already marginalized student subgroups. We concluded that school/community pride is largely [...]
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Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling: “I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible [...]
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Without going into all of the back story, Wednesday evening found Dr. Reardon using one of his Aussie phrases that left me needing a point of clarification. Who knew that a sweaty nightcap was not a reference to a drink or, dare I say, something more? While we all enjoyed a good laugh, I found [...]
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Whenever students are thought to be living out of district a five-day letter is issued, whereby the parent/guardian has five days to prove residency within the school’s zone or else be withdrawn. Recently, I learned of such a situation…on the heals of a physical safety issue involving the student in question. My initial thought was [...]
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According to dictionary.com, to be immoral, as it applies to conduct, is to not conform to the usually accepted standards and principles. If we consider that values and morals are examples of groupthink, which Janis suggests is unhealthy, then it is possible to consider immorality as a good thing, at times, as it does not conform (not saying this [...]
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I have often considered keeping a journal to be rather feminine. What I have enjoyed about this program, among other things, is that it has broadened my perspectives and broken some of my biases…like emasculation via journal keeping. Over the past month and a half we have been encouraged to capture moments and events that [...]
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I have often been jealous of a friend of mine who works in a Maryland district that follows a year-round school calendar. Common sense would suggest that the less time you spend away from practicing a skill the less time you will need to resharpen it. In Virginia, at least, when it comes to competing with [...]
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Is there anyone who can name the people other than Joe Paterno that lost their job amid the Jerry Sandusky scandal? I certainly cannot, and would venture to make the assertion that the many individuals following this story are in the same boat. In translation, Joe Paterno was Penn State. He is the reason thousands of students [...]
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During the downtime between semesters, I have enjoyed watching various athletic contests (mainly football) to include the post game interviews and locker room talks. Recently, Drew Brees, quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, broke a 27-year-old record for most pass yards in a single season…a record set by Dan Marino that many thought would never [...]
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One comment from Saturday particularly resonated with me, which was when Dr. Sokol suggested that the peer review process is circular with respect to better reading = better writing = better reading. While I have always considered myself to be quite comfortable with writing processes, I did not think to consider that reviewing the work [...]
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