Here are the books I have coming out over the course of the next 12 – 18 months…

Daddies Do it Different

This is my first children’s picture book, inspired by recognizing that, as a father, “Mommies do it one way… but daddies do it different.” A funny, very warm book that just poured right out of me. Dedicated to my daughter and wife.

Nerd Girls

Inspired by the fact that I am so sick and tired of the way that so many teen books for girls are about a bunch of rich snobs who think they are all that, I wanted to write a book that was much more like my experience in working with middle and high school teens. And the fact is, most kids are nerds.

And most kids are funny.

And most kids are awkward, unsure, confused and just struggling to make their way through middle and high school.

And most girls love to laugh.

Nerd Girls is a comedy for the rest of us, the ones who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who don’t always have the latest and greatest and most expensive clothing. The ones who actually are nice, real people – the kind that are real friends.

But wow was this a fun one for me to write. And it’s going to be a series. These girls are such dorks… they make me laugh just thinking about them Yet they have such heart.

The Math Class Problem No One Ever Talks About

Actually, this title may change… to Bonerville Middle School. Why? Because that’s what it’s about, a boy who gets an erection in math class… and gets busted.

But the thing is, it’s not a sex book. It’s a comedy about the fact that about a zillion 8th grade books every year get these uncontrollable woodies that Pop Up out of nowhere – and Boner Management becomes one of the most important areas of their life.

Prepare to laugh at Bobby Conner, a kid who is absolutely tortured by the perpetual popsicle in his pants.

Cinder-Smella

I re-imagined the Cinderella fairy tale as set in modern-day New York City with a protagonist that has very stinky feet! Yet another inspired by bedtime rituals with my daughter. Fun, fun, fun to write.

I’ve heard that it costs the United States Treasury more than one cent to produce a penny. Obviously these people went to American schools because where else would you come up with the idea to spend more money creating an item than the item itself would ultimately be worth?

And then, complicating the irony of it all is the fact that this is currency we’re talking about. We are losing money making [literally] money.

But worse yet, why do we still continue to do it.

Once upon a time, copper was cheap and the U.S. penny actually possessed the ability to purchase something. Not much, but something.

Nowadays if all you have is a penny in your pocket — or two or three — you ain’t got squat. I can’t think of anything that a penny will buy. (Except “your thoughts” and for some people’s, that’s over-paying… another issue entirely.)

And yet, the U.S. Treasury is coming out with a new penny. Never mind the fact that there was a campaign I’d heard of a few years ago to get rid of the penny entirely (because of its out-dated-ness, the folly of its cost, and so on) and just kick the lowest form of U.S. currency up to a nickel. (BTW, I’d sign that petition.) So essentially, they are going to continue to use taxpayer money to create new money that is less valuable than the expenditure it took to craft the money in the first place.

From the moment it rolls off the production line it’s an exercise in silliness. And yet, they continue to do it. Why?

Cause that’s the way it’s always been done. (I guess.) I only wish they would take a lesson from our schools.

D’oh!

Anyone notice that we, in education, still seem to do a lot of things for what seems like the “cause that’s the way it’s always been done” reason.

I guess those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at the penny makers, huh? I mean, I could bash and bash this new penny idea on and on but at least the U.S. Treasury has money.

Schools, we certainly don’t. Matter of fact, we’re so hard up that to us pennies look like benjamins.

I never read Cookie Magazine. Nor Modern Bride or Elegant Bride. I did flip through Gourmet magazing once. Matter of fact, I think I even bought a subscription of it for a holiday gift one year for a friend.

Yet now they will be no more. News just announced by Conde Nast is that the plug is officially being pulled by the powers that be.

The question is, should I be troubled by this?

On one hand, yes, because I may not get to eat as many really great cookies as I would hope to eat in this lifetime so from a simple stomachal POV, there’s an off chance that my own intake of sweet treats might be negatively impacted by this latest cookie development.

Yet, on the other hand, I do kind think there is a glut of too many magazines out there. I mean when I look at all the different titles being published every month, I think to myself, “Who reads these things?”(Then again, who am I to judge? If people want to read about collecting pushpins or sewing duvet covers or whatever, more power to them. At least they are reading, right?)

So on one hand, maybe this is just the natural form of economic Darwinism taking place. There were too many magazines being published and now there will be less until the demand for more rises. On the other hand, maybe it’s that all magazines are dying due to the internet and soon none of them will exist in paper format? First the newspapers, then the magazines, finally the books… it seems to be a pattern that might play out.

But as the power to determine what gets published gets consolidated and the power to control what is or is not on our electronic devices becomes less and less in our our own control, how long is it before no more Cookie Magazine means no more George Orwell because his material is deemed unfit?

We already saw what happened when Orwell was zapped by Amazon… what happens when it becomes purposeful due to ideological beliefs about the content?

Are we in the age where all science fiction is actually going to play itself out? And is the end of Cookie Magazine my awakening to this fact? I mean I used to think an Orwellian dystopia was far flung stuff… now I see the pieces falling into places like dominoes.

And what am I doing about it? Hoping someone will still pass along recipes to others on how to bake really great cookies because as we know, if you just feed me sugar, you can numb me to the hard realities of every other aspect of existence.

Working on my listening skills has probably been one of the best pieces of PD advice I have ever tried to take to heart.

The fact is, we teachers, we kinda come to class to talk. To impart. To flow outwardly. And in the chaos that is a teaching day, with hundreds of students coming at you from hundreds of angles at a hundred miles an hour seeking hundreds of answers (from “May I go to the bathroom?” to “Do you think Shakespeare really wrote all those plays?” to “Can I bring in the homework I didn’t do two days ago and was supposed to turn in today, tomorrow?”), it’s quite the challenge to remember that one of the best ways to ensure that you are going to be an effective educator comes through listening.

And it’s almost counterintuitive in a certain way.

I mean we lesson plan over the weekend to come rock the house on Monday morning but really, for all our concoctions, for all our data driven determinations, for all our plans and goals and aspirations, how much time do we actively plan to listen? To patiently wait? To reflect and then respond?

Really, does the VP ever storm into your room and demand that you absorb, consider, weigh, and not judge your students… but rather, see what they think, feel, care about and want to do, express, experience?

Do our kids not have much to teach us about how to teach them?

If there is one area I think I can always improve upon, both as a teacher — and a human being in a multitude of relationships (monogamous as one of them is… had to throw that in there, right Honey?) — it’s “How can I be a better listener?”

Teacher quality is something no one can really argue with. I mean the idea that supremely excellent teachers will do a better job at educating our nation’s kids than weak, apathetic teachers is self-evident.

And the Gates Foundation just spent a heck of a lot of money to verify this.

But don’t fantastic doctors save more lives, exceptional lawyers win more court cases, and phenomenal police detectives crack more crimes? Of course they do.

So the question really is, how do we create more great teachers?

And they are created, not born. In the spirit of the book OUTLIERS, I’d suggest that we are looking at great teachers as if they were simply born that way. Sure, they went to school, did their requisite reading and had a bit of knack for working with kids, but the fact is, if we want more great teachers we, as a nation, are going to have to make them.

And how do we do this?

Professional development.
Conferences.
Planning time.

The objective? The sharing of best practices.

The fact is, the world of teaching has changed spectacularly in the past few years. To wit, 5 years ago I don’t think I even knew what Google was; now it’s an active verb in my teaching life and I do things like take Google Lit Trips — a term that might as well have been spoken to me in Russian but a very short time ago… and still might appear like something in Russian to many, many teachers out there today.

And the fact that I am blogging this on a ning is not lost on me. This is an entirely new vocabulary in the lexicon of education and without me having had these things shown to me, explained to me, taught to me by other educators, I simply would not have these methodological tools in my teacher’s toolbelt.

Then again, I go to teacher conferences.

Sure, I am often invited to speak at them which makes getting to them much, much easier (like my district is off the hook for the funding of this stuff) but look at the arsenal I have available to me as a teacher as a result of being in attendance at national conferences like NCTE. Does this time at the conferences pay off for my district in terms of what I can offer to my students and/or illuminate to other teachers on our staff?

It’s not even a question.

Of course, people ask me to come do professional development for their districts all the time but in so many ways, I am just standing on the shoulders of those who illuminated different tools, ideas, strategies and so forth for me once upon a time. Yes, like any chef, I will often play with the recipe in order to make the meal my own, but first I needed someone to inspire me as to the meal I could cook.

My career is now dedicated to being more of a share-er. (It truly is a place where I find great personal and professional satisfaction.) I try to share through the posts I author, through the material I post on the web at my website, and through the curriculum I write for authentically engaging reluctant readers and writers. But if our nation is serious about great-en-ing our country’s teachers, we are going to have to put teachers in a position where they can be learners, where they can work on improving their craft.

We need to make a commitment to those who work as as teachers in our schools to remain well schooled. We need to make a greater commitment to sending teachers to professional development conferences. It’s where the best of the best gather to give… and I always leave with a full bag of fantastic goodies.

Conferences are the moments in which great teachers are created.