Ben Guest’s Blog

Civil Rights II

2005-11-18T08:26:00Z

In his new book, "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America," Jonathan Kozol writes about his decision to become a teacher. Here is the first paragraph: "I began to work among schoolchildren more than 40 years ago...

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Civil Rights

2005-11-18T08:03:00Z

Educational inequity is the civil rights issue of this generation. The schools that we (the Mississippi Teacher Corps) go into are high-need and almost completely African-American. They are also among the poorest districts in the poorest state in ...

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WANTED:

2005-10-15T04:26:00Z

Employees for growing, complex enterprise in a highly regulated industry. Must stay focused on core business despite disparate stakeholder demands, uncertain funding, critical labor shortages, and politically charged environment. Must be highly sk...

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Stages Redux

2005-10-06T22:14:00Z

I asked some of our recent alumni what they thought of the stages post. Matt Alred, Class of 2003, sent in his own, modified version. Enjoy. I think you got it down pretty good. Here is my run through of what I felt my fellow MTCer's went through...

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Stages

2005-10-03T21:50:00Z

There are several distinct stages a first-year teacher goes through. Not all teachers go through each stage, and teachers go through each stage at different times but having now worked with three groups of first-year teachers in our program I've c...

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Gregory

2005-10-03T12:26:00Z

One of the sad truths of teaching is that you will teach kids who die. My second year teaching was the first time I crossed that unfortunate bridge. A young man named Pieter who was in my tenth-grade English class. He was play-fighting with his c...

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Katrina

2005-09-07T09:46:00Z

Having taught in one of the poorest areas of the world as part of Peace Corps and in one of the poorest areas of the United States as part of Teacher Corps, I am somewhat familiar with the effects of poverty (although only from a distance as I gre...

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Nanny 911

2005-09-07T09:22:00Z

Flipping through the channels last night I stumbled on a show called Nanny 911. I'd never seen it before but I was amazed at three things in this week's episode: 1) That the mother didn't slap the hell out of her son. 2) That Nanny didn't slap t...

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Trends

2005-08-29T01:37:00Z

I'm lucky (or maybe just old) in that having been Program Manager for more than two years and having been involved with Teacher Corps for more than five years I'm able to see the "big picture" of what Teacher Corps is accomplishing. Well, maybe th...

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Hollandale

2005-08-15T07:51:00Z

I started visiting some of the first years this week. I also had to give a talk at the Leland Lions Club so I made Hollandale my "base" for two nights. It was nice to see old friends, and especially former students. Ernest Hemingway, one of my fa...

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