Turning Recess into a Cultural Celebration
This school year has unfolded during a time when conversations about diversity, immigration, and education seem to be everywhere, leaving a quiet uncertainty about belonging. Many parents and educators are…
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Gratitude Tour: Kelly Chung
“Aunty Mom” is what her students affectionately call her. My wife Merf and I called her Kelly throughout our high school days. Kelly is one of my wife’s best friends. …
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Lawsuit Targets i-Ready Maker Over Student Data Privacy Concerns
A group of K–12 students has filed a federal class action lawsuit against Curriculum Associates, Inc., the maker of the widely used i-Ready educational platform, alleging that the company unlawfully…
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Gratitude Tour: Bob O’Connor
Bob O’Connor and I met during our 7th grade year at South High (a small neighborhood school that included 7th through 12th grades) and became best friends fairly quickly. I…
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When Students Think in L1 First: What Teachers Often Misunderstand About Language Learning
William’s mother sent me a message on WeChat after our first lesson together. “I can roughly understand why his English now sounds like Chinglish,” she wrote. “It’s because he’s been…
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Everything Educators Need to Know About the Seal of Biliteracy Requirements: 5 Common FAQs
In an increasingly globalized world, multilingualism has become a highly valuable skill. The Seal of Biliteracy has become a prestigious benchmark in the American education system, serving as recognition of…
Keep readingBeyond the Bell: A New Jersey Teacher’s Adventure of Learning, Healing, and Storytelling
Education does not end when the dismissal bell rings. For many educators, teaching is not simply a profession; it is a calling that extends into homes, communities, and the everyday…
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Building Empathic Classrooms: What We Gain from Peer Support Models
A Need to Belong My memories of being bullied in middle school and high school are still vivid. As an individual on the autism spectrum, the complexities of social relationships were especially challenging during my formative years. It is with great empathy that I now approach the challenge of inclusive settings as an educator. I…
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Trailblazing for Liberation: How Jamial Black Is Reimagining Education as Justice Work
In a national moment where education is increasingly shaped by policy debates, cultural tensions, and systemic inequities, educators like Top 50 Educator, Jamial Black, are reframing the profession as more than instruction; they are positioning it as a site of intervention, advocacy, and liberation. Black, a first-generation scholar, educator, and founder of Roots of Wisdom…
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The Objectification of Public Education
When I first entered the classroom at eighteen—as a long-term substitute, a vacancy, a body-to-fill-the-room; so I was hired, so I was told—I carried with me all the freshest and most potent and most upsetting memories of being a student in the same school system. Among them, I remembered how alienating my hunger felt, having…
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Gratitude Tour: Libby Lang
Six years into my still-fledgling career, I began teaching at Durham Academy, a Pre-K to 12 independent school in North Carolina. It would be difficult to find anyone who represents all that is wonderful and worthy about Durham Academy more than Libby Lang. Independent schools, especially, come to be known for certain families. I’d stack…
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A gun came to my room, but it will not define my room
“When despair for the world grows in me,” writes Wendell Berry. “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” This poem is recited at the beginning of every class I teach. The class is called Wilderness Literature. The intent of the poem is to transition from…
Keep readingWhen Behavior Is Survival: Understanding Trauma in the Classroom
More than meets the eye We’re sitting together, going over her English notes, and I can see the frustration building in her eyes. Before I can even finish my sentence, she bolts out of her chair, storms over, her voice trembling as she shouts, “I’m going to fail! I’m a failure. I’m never going to…
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Gratitude Tour: Simon Curry
During the 2023/2024 school year at Blue Ridge School (my final year of fulltime teaching), I lived in a trailer. ‘A trailer’ wasn’t completely accurate. It…
Nature in the Classroom: Enhancing Tranquility in a Classroom
Imagine a student working through a challenging task. Teacher support has been provided and problem solving strategies have been tried, but frustration is increasing. The student looks up…
Teaching with Ring-Things: Planning Beyond the Lesson Plan
I was doing potty patrol outside in the hallway in deference to my smoke allergy, when a kid came up to me and shoved into my hand a…
Cultivating Safety, Belonging, and Well-Being: The Trailblazing Work of María Barragán Ortiz
María Barragán Ortiz is an internationally recognized multilingual educator, researcher, Top 50 Educator, and consultant whose work centers on creating safe, inclusive, and sustainable learning environments. From her…
The Inner Student: Math Changes Lives
All educators know there’s far more to teaching than accomplishing the stark outline of a syllabus. In fact, the most important accomplishment is illuminated by an email I…
Our children deserve a phone-free school day
Last year, I wrote to the Glendale Unified school board urging a bell-to-bell ban on smartphones. Since then, the landscape has shifted in ways that sharpen the argument.…