This year has been one of change for me. In January, I left teaching to follow a dream and move with my family to an ecovillage in rural Missouri. Since then, we have been homeschooling our two kids. When we were telling my family about our decision to leave mainstream life behind, they were - [...]
I’ve probably given hundreds of tests during my career, but the truth is, if I had the choice, I would never give my ELA students tests of any kind. This is one of those things that has sort of snuck up on me over the years. For example, I used to give a test on [...]
There are few things that I enjoy more than getting students to question, analyze, write about, discuss, and, ultimately, clarify their own views on complicated questions. It reminds me of my own history teachers in high school and how they communicated their passions to us students. In one class, we were supposed to study American history [...]
Dear Parent or Guardian: This letter is to inform you that your student will likely fail soon. They might not fail a class, or even a quiz or a homework assignment, but they will fail at something. They will also make mistakes, get feedback on those mistakes, and then make some new mistakes. . In fact, [...]
When she first studied students to learn about how a growth mindset can be instilled in people, Carol Dweck gave kids puzzles. After successfully completing the somewhat easy puzzles, one group of kids was praised for their effort while the other was praised for their talent at puzzles or for being “good at puzzles.” Thus [...]