Parent-teacher conferences are always a good time to reflect on your teaching practices. For instance, about an hour ago, I spent about 45 minutes cleaning out the files of past 4 years of my teaching career. As I threw away assignment sheet after assignment sheet, I just kept thinking, "Man, I've done some assignments that I thought were brilliant, but ended up being a total waste" But, fortunately, most were insightful and fun, and I aim to retain some practices that I've done in the past, in my classrooms for as long as I teach -- class discussions for points, and read-arounds, to name a couple. It's nights like these that I wonder how anyone could want to do anything but teach... and it sounds so idealistic that I want to change the world or something, but don't we all?