Teaching is like being a parent, parenting always involves teaching, and when you do both, the lines blur. This blog will explore issues in the classrooom, and at home that come up when I try to be fair but functional to teenagers.

How do we present standard education (for example, classic literature) in a world that has so fundamentally changed? Students today do everything online, in front of a screen, via technology. Can we fully understand how ancient and last century a book looks to them? How do we get them to invest in the value of such masters as Shakespeare when they focus 140 letters at a time?

This blog will seek to discuss the journey of a book-loving older Dad and teacher trying to find relevant means of commmunicating with current teenagers’ significanlty different world.

The first issue will explore respect in the Cellphone Age. How do we address tempers, being cursed out, and short attention spans at a time when just about every student is walking around with more powerful technology in their pocket than I have in my classroom?

That blog will be posted tomorrow. I plan on posting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and will have a theme for each (home, school, world, or some variation on that). All will deal with passing knowledge on to those coming up in a very different world, and how to survive and remain relevant as that world changes so rapidly.

I hope people will find this worth their time, and I welcome feedback throughout.

Christopher Ryan is author of City of Woe, available on Kindle and Nook, and in print. For more info, click here.