Mr. Fasano’s English Class

I’m in the process of moving all of The Crucible material to The Crucible page. See the link on the above navigation menu.

[Read more →]

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

A student of mine, Julio, wanted me to post this video of him and his friends demonstrating their skateboarding skills. That way, as he put it, “everyone can look at it and say ‘damn that guy is so sexy.’” I have to admit there’s real joy in this video. Sometimes we teachers forget how much fun our kids get out of life, perhaps because we expect them to do so much work. By the way, the kid who keeps putting his palm in front of the lens kind of kills it.

[Read more →]

Today was one of those days. Teachers know what I mean by that.

It was the sort of day that might have found me sitting at a coffee house writing in my journal…if I had a journal and if I had the time to stop on the way home.

The gist of what’s bugging me can be summarized as follows: I have too many areas for improvement.

I have to finish my classroom arrangement, which I should have completed last month. My desk is still a mess with no proper place to do my grading. My lesson planning has sucked; I can’t seem to get anything up on the board. Bellwork has become a joke; I need to find a way to combine SSR with journal writes. I also need to consistently enforce the tardy policy, which in my room means that if you’re not in your seat and on task when the bell rings, you’re tardy. No excuses. Lastly, I need to monitor my students better. I’ve gotten too lazy and spend too much time behind my desk and not moving around.

What do they say about a moving target being hard to hit?

[Read more →]