It has been a challenging year to be a teacher. This is not a newsflash to anyone who is a teacher, has a teacher in their lives, or has been paying attention to life for the last year. As easy as it is to focus on the struggles and the negativity this year brought, I […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Alan’s Declassified School Survivor Guide for First-Year Teachers
Alan Jimenez is a first-grade teacher from Southeast Texas. He is currently planning to pursue a Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Early Childhood Education. His focus as an educator is to provide a well-balanced education for all his students, particularly those from impoverished homes or those who do not […]
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Words Can Stick With Students for a Lifetime: Part One
Words Can Stick With People for a Lifetime “Be mindful when it comes to your words. A string of some that don’t mean much to you, may stick with someone else for a lifetime.” -Rachel Wolchin Whoever came up with the childhood rhyme “ sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never […]
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The Power of Words in the Classroom: Part Two
Every teacher should know the power of words in the classroom. In part one of this series, I introduce the idea that words have the power to heal or the power to harm. In this series, I give tips on words to avoid, words to say more, and how science shows that words can change […]
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I’ve stopped being a Reading Interventionist-Why you Should Also
Reading interventionists, educators, administrators, and publishers have a terminology problem. In contrast to many educators, we in the field of reading have come to accept the normalized use of terms that are not student- and family-positive. They are terms that have emerged from therapeutic approaches to adult addiction. In the context of the teaching of […]
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LGBTQ+ Students Need Advocates, Not Tolerance
As Pride Month comes to a close, we should consider the needs of our students who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. To be sure, these students have needs that go unmet daily. Considering how homogeneous and patriarchal most curricula are, we have a long way to go to equitably represent the LGBTQ+ community. Rather […]
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When You Can’t Reach Every Student: A Different Type of Teacher Guilt
As we close out this school year, I feel overwhelmed with a different type of teacher guilt. Like everything else during this forced time of distance learning, the pandemic has exaggerated many teachers’ missions of the need to reach every student somehow. When we know that we have put forth the Herculean effort, when we […]
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Equity Check: Changing Our Teaching Practices in Literacy
Reading and writing are essential tools for success in life. Imagine how you would survive, make a living, or even make purchases at the grocery store without basic reading and writing skills. In order to be successful in today’s technology age, students will need to know how to communicate on all platforms. Students will need […]