Welcome to Staff Loungin World Tour, the podcast where educators talk about education and fly around the world in a Lear jet sipping champagne and eating caviar while they do it In this inaugural episode of the tour Dave jets down to Atlanta to talk to Franchesca Warren, founder of the popular blog, The Educator’s […]
Posted inEnglish Language Learners, Instruction & Curriculum
Changes that Need to be Made in ESL
As an ESL teacher there are a few things that I wish would change in education today. These are things that specifically relate to English language learners. Of course, there are other aspects in education that could do with some tweaking, but for today The focus is ESL. 1. Licensing. Teaching English to speakers of […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Comma, Comma, Comma…Comma Cameleon
Have you ever read the book, Flowers for Algernon? It is the story set in the 1960’s of a special needs adult man named Charlie who undergoes surgery to increase his intelligence. At the beginning of the story, Charlie can write much as a young child can write, but he does not understand the concept of commas. After the […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Social Studies, Technology
Week 5/6: iPad Rollout- Differentiation
Living in Vermont means making amends for educational productivity when a perfect snowstorm blankets the state. Students and teachers embrace the cold powder while it lasts. We ski, we snowboard, we play hard. No wonder Vermont supplies a proportionate number of Olympians. At school we gained one actual snow day and then a week of […]
Posted inFeatured, Principals' Corner
Decreasing Our Drop-out Rate
In the U.S., one student drops out of school every 12 seconds. Too often we assume that students drop out because they are disinterested or lazy. Maybe we should be looking at our traditional high schools to see if they may be the problem. One model program that has been working since 1995 is Big […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Opinion
Always. Ask. Questions. Always.
As a teacher, have you ever thought about the power of the almighty “question?” Without questions where would we be as a society, as students, as teachers, as classroom communities? One day I found a website that listed the top ten philosophical questions of all time. The #1 question (of course) “Does God exist?” The second […]
Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, Opinion
The Coming Catastrophe in Education
Thought experiments are employed throughout the academic world, from mathematics and quantum mechanics to philosophy and economics. But rarely are they used in the world of education. And yet, like a gathering storm whose birth pangs only emit a gentle and benign breeze, there are early signs that American public education is possibly starting down […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Independent Reading Book Choice Questions
Independent reading in our school grades 7-12 means students read books of their own choosing, make recommendations, and keep records of what they read. Because of a illness on my staff, we have a substitute (Natalie) who is an enthusiastic graduate of our high school school with a BS degree in Creative Writing. She has been […]