This summer I spoke with three friends on three consecutive days. Each declared burnout in their field – one in business, one in transportation, the other in sales – and they were hearkening back to their college-aged dreams. All parents themselves. All great with kids. All looking to become teachers. But because of student-teaching, they […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Missing Link in Culturally Diverse, Anti-Racist Work is Paid Collaboration
We have heard so much about the need for a culturally diverse, anti-racist curriculum, but the question is, are you willing to pay teachers for their time and energy in writing and implementing it? There are many teachers out there who have seen enough seminars and been to enough conferences to have been inspired to […]
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Setting Boundaries for Type A Personality Teachers
Think about the number of things you do each day. Now think about how many of those things you do that are actually things you enjoy doing. I hope that the number of things you enjoy doing outnumbers the things you don’t enjoy, but for many of us, I believe that’s untrue. We live in […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Check Your Toxic Positivity and Correct Your Word Choices
How many times this past year during pandemic teaching did you hear, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” How many times after hearing that “verse” have you felt like a complete failure? Well, here’s the deal – that’s not actually a verse, but a variation of this one: No temptation has overtaken […]
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President Biden is Correct, All Teachers Should Be Vaccinated, But With One Exception
“There’s no way I’d do it. I’d rather be fired!” “Sign me up tomorrow; we should be testing all kids and teachers! We’re in a pandemic!” “It’s a conspiracy. Why do you think they’re so bent on us getting this shot!” These were the tidbits of conversations that I heard as I clocked in Friday […]
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September 11: My Eleventh Day of Teaching
On Sept. 11, 2001, it was my eleventh day of teaching. As I headed into my seventh-grade language arts classroom at 7:30 a.m., I was already sweating in the lingering summer heat of early September. A few posters on the mostly bare wall hung haphazardly in the humidity, mirroring my own wilted exhaustion. I was […]
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I Let My Teaching Dream Die and I Don’t Regret It
By Lanee Higgins At 16, it was my dream to become an English teacher. I wanted to inspire students the way my English teachers inspired me. I sacrificed so much to become a teacher–sleep, sanity, and being there for my grandma’s final days of life– it hurts that much more that at 28 I let […]
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A New Hippocratic Oath For Teachers
In March of this year, I watched as a student’s beloved grandfather had a stroke via Zoom. It was beyond frustrating to know there was so little I could do for him, and the event was not only traumatic for my student but pretty much summed up the entire year for me as a virtual […]