About four years ago my wife called me at school and told me that our oldest daughter had gotten off the school bus crying. Walking up our 100 feet of driveway between the road and our door, she had her report card in one hand and was clearly trying to gather herself before getting to […]
Posted inParents
Encouraging Children to Read and Write
Originally posted in RealEdReform My own three daughters are insatiable readers, perpetual writers, and the oldest is our first state-level and national level prize winner for her writing. Number two has submitted this year, but she’s only in 10th grade and is just beginning to develop her formidable chops. How did I encourage my children to […]
Posted inTeacher Leaders
The Transparent Teacher
Michelle* was a beautiful girl with skin the color of onyx. She was smart and funny with a quick wit and an even quicker tongue. She was both fiery and feisty which meant I spent a lot of time coming to her rescue when she got into a bit of verbal sparring with a teacher. […]
Posted inTeacher Leaders
What Happens When your School Goes Viral?
There is a meme that says teachers look forward to school breaks more than students do. There couldn’t be a meme more truthful. The sky has a blue hue, there are 50 states, and Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States. But truth is… teachers love their breaks. But what happens when […]
Posted inBack to School
Real Teaching Resolutions
So many people make New Years Resolutions, and many of them are broad and unrealistic. Every year I go into the new semester with my eyes wide open and I think about what I can do to improve. What can I do to make my life easier as a teacher in the New Year? Some […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Report Finds Students Cannot Google and Reason at the Same Time
If you Google the explorer John Cabot, you could get a web page from the website All About Explorers that states: “In 1484, the explorerJohn Cabot moved back to England with his wife and eleven sons. He developed his own website and became quite famous for his charts and maps depicting a new route to the Far […]
Posted inFrom the Front Lines
The Hardest Parts Of Teaching
These are the hard parts of teaching: Waking up from a nightmare where you’re out of breath and can’t find your classroom and are teaching in a foreign language to a group of kids who could care less about being there and you wonder, when you wake up, how that part of your fears will […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
The New Segregation
Because of the zoning of schools in Georgia and around the United States, there is a conspicuous homogenizing of students who attend the inner most city schools. Those with eyes on the educational landscape will notice that those students who are born of the city are left to attend the often underfunded and poorly supported schools, […]