Sometimes my knee’s a bit twingy. One good part of my job is that I can sit or I can stand. I can walk around the classroom. I have a lot of physical freedom depending upon how I script the day’s activities. Teaching works well for people who don’t like to sit. I’m probably a better teacher for my restlessness, too. Even as I try to keep students seated, I am able to feel compassion for those who struggle to stay with the program. I try to work breaks into the routine that let students get up and move around a little.

What’s a teacher to do when her students ask if the government is secretly hiding alien invaders in Nevada?

“Not that I know of,” I reply, and then note that if the cover-up is a carefully-crafted, big secret, of course, we would not know.

I don’t want to encourage conspiracy theories. I already have girlfriends who are afraid to take trains. But if we are trying to stimulate critical thinking, I can’t shut down this line of thought. The idea that “you can’t prove a negative” may be pseudologic, but how can I say that the concept of stashed aliens is absurd? I can’t prove that the truth is not out there, buried in some underground bunker in Nevada, so I just do my best to offer the facts and probabilities as I perceive them.

In the end, they are looking at me as if I am a possible part of the conspiracy, wrecking their fun. They want secret government cover-ups. They seem to want aliens.

Eduhonesty: We need more Nova episodes and fewer Cupcake Wars.

Standardized tests are normed on “regular” students.

Eduhonesty: This ensures that our lower-performing students in poor and urban districts — or anywhere else for that matter — will get their asses kicked by these tests. No other result is possible. “Regular” or “average” students set the difficulty level of the test, with the intent that these students will fall into the middle of the test distribution. Lower students then must fall to the bottom.

No bully on the playground could come up with a better plan for making a kid feel like a loser.