Like most people who attended school in the '90s and early 2000s, I fully brought into the college = success, no college = failure ideology. I came to teaching as an aide at the age of 22 and expected to encourage students that they must attend college, no other paths. I learned a hard lesson [...]
English/language arts students have the privilege of being “transported across the globe, back in time or into the future” as they read poems, plays, novels, and articles because classrooms are “spaces of discovery, possibility, and participation where students learn to empathize with experiences of people like and unlike themselves” (Beach et al, 2017). These students [...]
I have a teacher confession to make. I failed him. Not “gave him an F” failed him but failed him as a young man. A student with a future ahead of him, someone who could one day be a father, a councilman, or even president. But I failed him. It was my second year as [...]
Teachers are well versed in the helicopter parent. The helicopter parent hovers at all times picking at small things, meddling, and is generally over-involved. They will usually try to solve each and every small problem their kid encounters by asking the teacher to get involved or blaming the problem on the teacher. This new type [...]
If you are part of #Edutwitter, you see the various educators displaying the great work happening in their classrooms and districts. I may be alone in this, but I occasionally have FOMO when I scroll through. Social media sure knows how to paint a pretty picture of what’s going on. However, if you think critically [...]