Imagine working in a school where the only standardized tests are the ones that students study for like their lives depend on it (because they do), where meetings occur only on an as-needed basis, where our future-oriented students really ‘get’ what they are supposed to be doing at school—obviating the need for School Improvement Plans, punitive Teacher Appraisal Systems, Response to Intervention, make-work Professional Learning Communities, disciplinary procedures, school restructurings, and all the other layers of bureaucratic distraction that many Western teachers say pulls their attention away from what they love to do. At HFI 95+% of my time and energy is devoted to lesson planning, marking and providing feedback on students’ work, and directly assisting students in and out of the classroom with their learning and their life goals.

I came here from an Illinois high school on a one-year leave-‘slash’-adventure that turned out to include finding a wife. When I became aware that it was possible to extend the leave to a second year, it was an obvious decision. Inevitably though, practical considerations require that I leave HFI at the end of these two years. I go back armed with new instructional strategies, renewed optimism about the educational endeavor and human nature in general, and a desire to return to the teaching environment of HFI when circumstances permit.

Jul 2013