By Julie Letofsky I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about James, a child in my second grade class years ago. James loved recess more than anything that went on in the classroom. Basketball, soccer, even just tossing a football – James lived for these activities. He was hyper-competitive; he HAD to be the […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Rebranding the Dreaded Essay: How to Demystify Essays and Make Them Meaningful During COVID-19
Whenever students hear the word “essay,” they groan, eye roll, and plead for something, anything else. Similarly, most adults I know remember high school or college essays they grudgingly finished just under the wire; late-night coffee, obsessive word counting, and a fair amount of teacher-specific bs-ing. It’s clear “The Essay” gets a bad rap, and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
One Step At A Time: My Go To Lesson With Van Gogh’s Starry Night
My Go-To Lesson If I were to ask you what is your “go-to” lesson, I bet a dozen donuts you could tell me all about it! Well, one of my favorite ones involves several different variations of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Small side story – while visiting my son and daughter-in-law in Dallas, we took […]
Posted inCOVID
This is Not the Way it Should Feel to Teach
What’s up with teaching. There is something amazing about that first sip of coffee on an almost cold enough to snow Sunday morning. Even at pretend 4:30 AM (because it’s still 5:30 real AMs to me), and at sixty-three real degrees in my living room, even though I have the thermostat set for what I […]
Posted inCoronavirus
A Final Lesson For Us All in Propaganda as a Teacher
Recently, a teacher in Paris named Samuel Paty was beheaded after giving a lesson on the importance of freedom of thought. With all going on in the news these days, I barely noticed it at first. Yet, as I wrote recently, a dangerous ideology that subverts free and intellectual discourse is growing and making inroads […]
Posted inCOVID-19
I’m Not a Lunch Bunch Kind of Teacher But COVID-19 Has Changed Me
by Jennifer M. Sierra I’ve never been a “lunch bunch” kind of teacher. I’ve spent most of my career teaching high school—mostly juniors, a few sophomores, a few seniors. Even now, in my fourth year of teaching middle school, the concept of a lunch bunch is still way too elementary for me. Additionally, it’s […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
4 Ways This Teacher Is Thankful
Teachers are constantly pushing. Pushing students to write better. Pushing them to read more challenging materials. Pushing them to make better arguments. Pushing them to practice their music. Then, when students master the task at hand, teachers find something else to improve. It’s implicit in the job. This constant drive to grow and be better […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
My Students Are Getting Me Through This Pandemic
I walk up the stairs trying to find the new weight room, the location of our school’s “rapid” Covid-19 testing area. My nose swabbed by a woman donned in full personal protection equipment makes me think of a scene from a dystopian movie. As I exit, I see one of my students arrive with what […]