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Even though I stopped updating this blog more than a year ago, people still read it and write to me about it. Spammers have, however, forced me to shut down trackback and comments. Sad, isn't it? I would still like to hear from readers, though, so if you want to write to me, email me at teacher @ thelwell.org (without the spaces).

Sorry for the inconvenience.

The Urban Education Journal is now up and running. My co-editors are Jason Brezina and Christine Back, both of whom are also Cohort 5 New York City Teaching Fellows. We are scheduled to graduate with our Masters in Science in Teaching from Pace University on May 25th, and this is the last week of classes. Consequently, we may not be posting as frequently as we like, although I know that Jason has a few pieces in the pipeline that were only awaiting the correction of some technical problems which has been done, so there should be fresh material soon.

I should have posted this a long time ago, and I apologize to those you have read this blog and wondered why I stopped posting.

Certainly lack of time and energy, and major personal life matter to deal with, contributed to my failure to post. The primary reason, however, was that the blog had served it's original purpose: recording the experiences of a first year teacher. It never felt quite right posting to it this year, and I think that's because I recognized that "Teacher: Year One" was complete. I like to think that this weblog will stand on it's own for what it is.

That does not, however, mean that I no longer intend to use a weblog to communicate my experiences and thoughts about public education. I will be working with two Fellows from my Cohort to produce the online Journal of Urban Education. While it is not quite ready to go public, we will be opening our "door" within a few weeks. I will be posting the link here, but if you are interested in it and don't want to keep checking back, please email us and I will let you know as soon as we open.

I also want to thank again, all of you who have read this blog and written such wonderful, helpful and encouraging things to me. I hope to see you at the Urban Education Journal. I plan to send notices to every person I received email from as I was producing this blog.

Thank you all so much!

I can't believe I'm starting a new year of this blog by apologizing for not posting but, there it is. Several people have written asking if I will still be writing this and, although I've assured them that I will, I've been remiss about actually doing it. This will be a short entry, but it is the beginning of Year Two.

The impetus for this particular post (besides it already being the fourth week of school, is the publication in the October 1 issue of Teacher Magazine of an article entitled: "This Time, It's Personal" by Mark Toner, one of the magazine's editors. The article is about "teachers who blog", and I was interviewed by Mr. Toner this summer. You have to register on the site to read the article, but registration is free, and you get access to Teacher Magazine and Education Week online content. Of course, there is a certain irony here: I'm reading this from school, and the web filter won't let me see the second page of the article: "Symantec Web Security -- Access Denied The requested document, http://www.teachermagazine.org/tmstory.cfm?slug=02Blog.h15, will not be shown. Reason: DDR score = 55. This page will not be displayed because it contains prohibited words or it has exceeded its tolerance of questionable words."

Since I am at school still (it's 5:45 pm) to work on my library, more reflections on the beginning of Year Two will have to wait until I get home.