Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.

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Showing entries for Category: blog

The Writing Process

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May 18, 7:52 PM

by Erica Jacobs, Education Examiner

The phenomenon of "The National Examiners" is only five weeks old, but already I have discovered something about the writing process as it has been affected by my (almost) daily posts. Twice my Monday column for the DC Examiner has grown out of an off-handed post as an Examiner. In the case of tomorrow's column, my post on "The Lasts of High School" allowed me to write two very short paragraphs comparing my students' "lasts" and my own; by the end of the post I realized that my simplistic formulation (that they look forward and I look backward) was totally wrong. That was confirmed by Joshua's comment on his own "lasts" as a student.

So when I came to write the longer column this weekend, I incorporated the wisdom I had gained in rejecting my initial oversimplification. This sort of reassessment happens again and again as writers put their thoughts into words and realize they are---STOO-PID. Or worse. This time, I was able to save a lot of time while writing my column by realizing, through the first writing, that students are not as unidimensional as I had characterized them to be.

All of us are wistful as we experience our last classes and last interactions with peers. Students may pretend they are only jubilant upon graduation, but it's more complicated than that.

So writing as a way-to-think-things-through wins again. I've always known the process has multiple steps, but I never thought this Examiner site would facilitate my column writing. Now I know better.

Topics: blog , students , column , writing process

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Monday Is My Education Column Day

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May 5, 8:31 AM

Every Monday is a big day for me: it's when my Education column appears in the DC Examiner. Today's column is titled "Short-Order Food for Thought," and is about the massive quantities of food I prepared for five after school sessions in preparation... Read More
Topics: blog , column , education

Teacher Blogs

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April 24, 11:47 AM

I have written a couple of columns for the Examiner on the need for teachers to speak out more in education. We hear from administrators and education consultants, and academics in education who teach only college students, but where... Read More
Topics: blog , teacher , voices

The Accidental Blogger

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April 21, 2:50 AM

Today's column is about this blog, and how it has made me appreciate my students' plight when things are moving fast and they don't quite understand what's going on. That's been me this past week! Every teacher needs to be a student, too.... Read More
Topics: blog

On Blogging (Phew!)

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April 19, 4:12 PM

As I commented below, this Educational Examiner blog has been totally unlike the two other blogs I've written for over the past few years. Last summer I wrote "An Ode to Blogging" when I thought I knew something about the subject.Ah, the naivete!... Read More
Topics: blog

A Steep Learning Curve

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April 19, 8:57 AM

I learned to read gradually, and my writing was pretty awful until I went to college, when I also learned to read much more carefully than I had in high school. But technology just came at me all at once in my middle age and the learning curve has been... Read More
Topics: word , day , learning , student , blog , Examiner , teacher