Differentiation is the one word in education that make the most subdued educators scream out in pain. Principals use it in evaluations like it’s going out of style, and content specialists talk about it like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Meanwhile, educators maintain intense fear when the word “differentiation” is uttered in conversation because […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
EFL Earth Day Lesson in Kinmen, Taiwan
I teach English in Kinmen, Taiwan, a rural island home to beautiful natural beaches, large evergreen pastures of land, tropical birds, and lots of cows—lots and lots of cows. Literally a million miles from celebrating Earth Day the way the United States honors nature. Kinmen’s nature is very well preserved, and when I want to […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Elementary School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Bringing Kids Together
Each teacher has a favorite. Favorite subject, favorite activity, favorite lesson. Three years ago I started one of my favorites. Each year we start January with “Where I’m From”. The students reflect on where they are from and what makes them who they are. While reflecting on themselves and where they are from, students can focus […]
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Who Will Care for the Teachers?
When I sat down to write this piece, my purpose was to scribe a thinly veiled, autobiographical accounting of my own experience of surviving the middle school classroom while I struggled with depression. However, wanting to avoid the cathartic-memoir trope, I planned to include information on the prevalence of depressive disorders among classroom teachers .I […]
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Race and the Four Children of the Passover Haggadah
Each Passover, Jews around the world celebrate and reflect on the holiday’s meaning through a festive meal called a seder, which literally means order. Although the focus of the evening is meant to be the retelling of the Hebrew slaves exodus out of Egypt, there are a lot of additional discussions. One part of the […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
[The Empowered Educators Fellowship] Teachers Know How to Fix Education
In June 2016, we will begin a one-year Empowered Educators Fellowship with 30 educators who exemplify our motto of, “Empowering Teachers as the Experts in Education.” These thirty teachers will the masterminds in “fixing” issues in education through the best source available- other teachers. This once in a lifetime opportunity was developed for teachers, by […]
Posted inHigh School, School Improvement
Power Hour: More Than Just Recess
Across the nation, schools are searching for methods to empower students, establish community, and prepare them for the real world. For some schools, the primary objective is to convince students to attend school, while other schools worry about over stressing their students. Power Hour, a school-wide “free” hour, allows students to take ownership over their […]
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Imposter Syndrome Among High School Students
For the sake of this article, we will call him Jarvis. Jarvis is a current junior at a math/science magnet high school in Georgia where he has the second-highest GPA in the entire building. Not his grade. The building. Out of 2,275 students, there is the only person who has a higher GPA than he […]