When school starts next year, I’ll be in my thirty-fifth year in education. I feel like the slogan of the Farmer’s Insurance ad, “I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two.” Group work is now “Cooperative Learning.” Homework and tests are now tagged as “formative” and “summative” assessments. “Bloom’s taxonomy […]
Current Events in Education
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Legalizing Marijuana – How does it Effect Schools?
Pot. Grass. Herb. Bud. Cheeba. 420. Mary Jane. You’ve probably smoked it. You’ve at least been around people who have smoked it. If not, you’ve seen it smoked on TV or the movies and thought those scenes were hilarious, it’s okay, you can admit it. In 2018 there are now eight states who have legalized […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher, Current Events in Education, English Language Learners, ESOL, Featured, Opinion, Teacher Leaders
Mandy Manning Is The National Teacher of the Year We Need – And Deserve
Most Americans only know Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, by their own knee-jerk reaction to the State Teachers of the Year Award Ceremony at the White House and, of course, the political fallout that occurred thereafter. She’s a darling to those on the left, adorning her formal, floral black dress with […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
Teaching in a Polarized Society: Reaching Across the Political Divide
“And the Oscar Goes To…” Teaching Civics in today’s hyperpartisan atmosphere is a dangerous occupation. The issues that make up the dialogue of American politics seem to have separated the American electorate to a higher degree today than in years past. Americans were always able to agree on their common heritage as the greatest democracy […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
More Transgender Students are coming forward than ever before, are teachers prepared?
When I first started teaching it was 2004. The term “transgender” was rarely used. It was a term I may have heard in passing, but I never used it to describe any of the students in my school. As far as I knew, there were no students in my classes who identified as being transgender. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Teaching the Kids We Have Right Now: LGBT+ Youth in the Classroom
In a recent NPR piece interviewing author Alex Wagner, she stated: “I think we do a lot of work in this day and age focusing on the future and on the past….we don’t invest enough in the present.”[i] Wagner was talking about her exploration of her genetic backstory, but the fact is, we focus on […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
In a Time When Its Hard to be a teacher, I look to Stoneman Douglas Students for strength
Since the events at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida on February 14, 2018, has anyone else been wondering if we are living in an alternate reality? I hear arguments from people (people whom I used to think were rational), claiming that teachers need to be armed. I’ve seen ads for bulletproof, pod-like structures […]
Posted inHow to Fix Education
Teachers In Action: From the Classroom to the Convention
It was a busy week. My student government kids teleconferenced with the Broward Education Foundation to award them $1,000 they had collected through the spare change in the cafeteria. The SCA students wanted to help the victims of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. The organization receiving the gift looks after the social, economic, and academic […]