I’ve always believed that part of my job as a teacher was to prepare my students to be lifelong learners. Students in school today can expect to have more than one career during their working lives. This makes it imperative that they are comfortable training for a new career. For this reason, students leaving high […]
Jackie Parrish
I am a retired teacher who taught in middle school for 30 years. I have certifications in elementary education, reading, and math. I have spent most of my career teaching math to 7th and 8th graders in an urban setting. I have also presented staff development within my school and within my district. Although I am now retired I am still passionate about teaching math in ways that engage all students.
Integers: Adding and Subtracting the Easy Way
Teaching integers can be very frustrating to students. Early in my teaching career I found that many of my students found adding and subtracting integers to be very difficult. I tried teaching the rules and learned that everyone (including me) was frustrated. I began to realize that one problem was that for most children, negative […]
Community Schools – What Are They?
Community Schools have recently caught my attention as they are coming to my home city of Philadelphia. James Kenney, the newly elected mayor is interested in converting 25 schools in the city to community schools. He is a supporter of both public education and improving all neighborhoods in the city. What Are Community Schools? By […]
Surviving Burnout: A Teacher's Story
Burnout occurs often in the field of teaching. Rarely does it have anything to do with the children that we teach. Usually, it has to do with decisions made by non-teachers and the ever increasing paperwork that comes with those decisions. I went through two burnouts during my teaching career. I survived one and continue […]
A Closer Look at School Choice: The Ohio Problem
choolRecently the United States Department of Education made a unique move regarding federal funds that had been awarded to the state of Ohio for expansion of charter schools. Here is part of the story. The summer of 2014 The Ohio State Board of Education began an investigation into the Horizon Science Academy High School in […]
Empathy: The Missing Link in the Classroom
Empathy, for me, was always one of the best ways to handle classroom management and even more serious incidents. Empathy was what allowed me to never take anything a student did or said personally. Recently it seems that lack of empathy is causing actions by students that are either disruptive or perceived as disruptive to […]
Math Talk – Fostering Mathematical Thinking
The two most powerful learning techniques that I used with my math classes were Think Aloud and Math Talk. I used Think Aloud, which is teacher directed, with the entire class slowly transitioning them into Math Talk for their group work. My Think Aloud Procedure I would begin with a problem that many of my […]
A Closer Look at School Choice: New Orleans
In part three of this series on school choice I am going to take a look at the all charter school district in New Orleans. Education reformers are touting this “experiment” as a possible solution to the problems found in districts with a large percentage of poor children and children of color. Superintendents from all […]