The field of Democratic presidential candidates is wide open. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Cory Booker, and Senator Kamala Harris have all dipped their toes in the chilly water that is the 2020 election. Choices are usually positive in most things, except when it comes to school choice. Of all the politicians mentioned above, Cory […]
Current Events in Education
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Opinion: If You Can’t Say “Black Lives Matter” Then You Can’t Use Any Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. […] Now we’ve got to keep attention on that. That’s always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window breaking. (15.1–2, 4–6) This is a quote from the last […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Dear Verizon: You Have Been Schooled!
#ReverseTheFee! Remind.com recently announced that beginning on January 28, 2019, seven million Verizon customers would no longer receive texts from a free and beneficial education app known as Remind. You may have been one of the millions of people who received the following email message from Remind.com: Hi Laura, We’re sorry to write with […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
Dissing the Family Crazies: A Christmas Story
Ahhhh… the two weeks teachers wait for that never seem to get here fast enough. I was so ready to be done with 2018 I had a collection of white flags hidden in my desk that I found myself waving ever so slightly throughout that last week of school. So as I got off of […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Let’s Diversify America’s Teaching Staff
Earlier this Spring, the Philadelphia-based education think tank Research for Action held a Twitter chat around the hashtag #4percentchat, which was the number of non-white teachers that we have here in Pennsylvania. Yes, though 18% of the Commonwealth is non-white, teachers of color are much less rare. While this is a problem in Pennsylvania, its […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
Band-Aiding The Mental Health of Our Children
I deal with the most difficult of kids. In all of my years of teaching, I have been called The Pied Piper for Children’s Behavior and a Child Whisperer. But one thing that has never gotten easier is seeing seven, eight and nine-year-old children on medications that can eventually cause more harm than good. [bctt […]
Posted inFeatured
5 Things to Consider Before Coming out as LGBTQ+ in the Classroom
By: Tory Waggoner I came out to my students as both queer and gender-nonconforming while working in a district just outside of Portland, OR. I was not prepared for the backlash I faced from colleagues, students, and parents. I thought in the liberal mecca of the Portland metro area that I would be relatively safe, but […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
Organizing Discussions on Controversial Topics
We are always challenging students to think differently: branch out, think outside the box, get out of their comfort zone. As a social studies teacher, I’m often trying to incorporate issues and ideas into our study or conversations that are relevant to students’ lives; things they may be facing now, or will likely deal with […]