Ahhhhh…. Maternity Leave. I can remember being nine months pregnant, ready to pop, and filled with pure excitement to be at home with my baby for twelve weeks. Twelve weeks of pure joy. Little did I know what those weeks at home with a new baby would really be like. They are filled with anxiety, […]
Confessions of a Teacher
What are the confessions of a teacher? Read these articles and find out.
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
Yes, Breaking Up (with a text) is Hard to Do
It’s not you. It’s the text. It’s moving on…to another grade level. “I just don’t understand why….” you catch your breath, “it’s been the only book I liked …no, I loved… to teach.” You pause, ‘Why does it have to leave?” After all, you and the book have been together for school years. You […]
Posted inBook Review
Book Review: The Smartest Kids in the World
The inside cover of Amanda Ripley’s book asks the question, “What’s it like to be a child in the world’s new education superpowers?” – namely South Korea, Poland, and – yes, of course – Finland. To accomplish this, she follows the lives of three separate American teens who serve as foreign exchange students there. In […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Hiding in the School Building: Why Lockdown Drills Suck
We had our first lockdown drill today. For anyone unfamiliar with these drills, it’s practice for not if, but when we have an armed intruder in our school. It involves hiding all students away from any windows or doors and locking them in a secure place. If I am being completely honest, these drills make […]
Posted inParents
When Your “Helicopter” Parent is a Teacher
I am enough years into teaching to have experienced a few of those parents. You know the type I mean: near daily notes, frequent phone calls and messages, surprise visits at school, requests for some special treatment or accommodation for their child, and occasionally an offering of personal information you might wish had never been […]
Posted inBack to School
I No Longer Want to Be Professionally Developed Due to Brain Overload
I love conferences. I always have, and now that I’m working in education, I love them even more. My background is in history and archaeology, so there was always a lot of them. You would prepare research, or just go and listen to what other people in the field were doing. Plus, it was always […]
Posted inTeacher Burnout
Dear Administrators: Let’s Not Make Meetings Suck
It’s 3:30 pm and all of the students have finally cleared campus. You start to gather your belongings to do some grading when the dreaded voice on the intercom comes on. “Faculty and staff our faculty meeting will start promptly at 3:45 pm. Please do not be late as we expect to go until 5:00 […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
A How To List For Flexible Classroom Seating
I don’t know why it took me so long to jump into flexible classroom seating. After 27 years of dodging clunky desks, tripping over backpacks and watching kids fidget uncomfortably in their hard plastic seats, I had had enough. I’ve had classes as large as 38, and it just was too hard to fit that […]