Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! It’s safe to say scholar, professor, and author Ibram X. Kendi brought the term antiracist into our collective consciousness with his bestseller, How to be an Antiracist.In his latest book, How to Raise an Antiracist, Kendi adapts his work […]
Book Review
7 Picture Books for Earth Day That Aren’t The Lorax
Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! Each year on Earth Day comes elementary school teachers across the U.S. pull out The Lorax and other tried and true read alouds. Many elementary teachers – a group that is disproportionately white women – tend to gravitate towards […]
Publishing So White: 7 Essential Black Young Adult Authors
Last week, The New York Times published a piece examining the whiteness in the publishing industry. (Thank you to Pod Save the People for bringing it to my attention in your underreported news section. I learn something new from you every week!) In the five major publications, they analyzed, from 1950-2018, 95% of their authors […]
Podcast Review: 1865
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s the power a single year could have on the world. The year 1865 is no exception, especially April of 1865. That’s where host Lindsay Graham (who is not the sitting South Carolina Senator) drops us into the storyline, right after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and Vice President Andrew Johnson’s […]
How to Think Like Shakespeare: A Fun Educational Tool
As an English teacher, there are few things more contentious than teaching Shakespeare in high school classrooms. The idea that he is outdated, pointless, and just plain boring has plagued many of us. I disagree with all of those things. Because of my positive Shakespeare feelings, I am always looking for new ways to teach […]
Pandemic Movie Choice: Bad Education: A Movie Review
“It’s not having what you want,” quips Roslyn Assistant Superintendent Pam Gluckin in her Long Island accent, “it’s wanting what you got.” And what educators got from HBO’s Bad Education was a harrowing detail of a pair of school administrators gone rogue with the school district’s treasury, sacking $11.2 million before they were caught… by […]
Teaching Romeo and Juliet to Beginning Level English Learners
Guest Writer: Karissa Knox Sorrell Teaching English Learners who are new to the country and are non-English speakers is a challenge at every grade, but it can be particularly challenging at the high school level when students have to earn credits, pass multiple state end-of-course exams, and engage with complex texts on a daily basis. With […]
Civility in the Classroom and the Rise of American Fascism
Setting the Stage I am in a hotel room with three millennials: Grace, 24, Gabriel, 22, Glorie, 20. An argument is raging: How can I be civil with people who support evil? I know that’s harsh. Is your neighbor who voted for Trump evil? I’ll say no. But these young people are having none of it. […]