What do the names Costello, Teller, and Pepa have in common? They are incomplete on their own. Abbott doesn’t exist without Costello, Penn without Teller, and Salt without Pepa. The success of these dynamic duos stems from their harmony together. One does not exist at the same level of greatness without the other’s contribution. Few […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Waging a More Civil War on Our Campuses is the New Norm
Waging a More Civil War on Our Campuses In my second year of teaching, I made the mistake of reading a book about a boy who was secretly a wizard to my class. The next afternoon, I found the back of my head scraping the bulletin board as a mother screamed, cursing me and Satan […]
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Education Challenges Turn into Advantages in a Rural Community
Challenges that seemed to be disadvantages in a rural community become advantages by pushing the teachers to find ways to give students opportunities to explore the world and expand their worldview.
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In Defense of Defending the Literary Canon
B.H. James is the author of Parnucklian for Chocolate and co-author of A Sea of Troubles: Pairing Literary and Informational Texts to Address Social Inequality and of Method to the Madness: A Common Core Guide to Creating Critical Thinkers through the Study of Literature. He has taught English at Franklin High School in Stockton, CA since 2006. Every May, I […]
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The Student-Teaching Model Is Outdated: Here’s How We Can Do Better
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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]