Every so often, Twitter is abuzz with literary “hot takes.” Some are anti-Shakespeare. Others want only contemporary literature in schools. Most of the time, they are about how awful some classic literature is. They talk about the classics, and how overrated they are. The comments range from agreement to shock. The Classics and Language One […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Standardized Testing’s Negative Affect on Math Education
Standardized Testing has been around for decades. In its original form, it was used to check a student’s progress from year to year. At some point around the 1970s test results were used to find specific areas of a subject where a majority of children were doing poorly. Teachers were encouraged to use activities that […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Shaking Up the Literary Canon
As an English teacher, I’ve noticed that most students tend to gravitate towards contemporary novels, rather than classic literature. Many of them tend to relate better to the characters in modern literature. It makes sense that students would be drawn to these stories, with themes that can relate directly to their lives and struggles today. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
“How my Identity as an Immigrant has helped me as an Educator”
I’ve lived my whole life adapting. I had to adapt when my mother had my little brother and I had to help her to take care of him. I had to adapt when I moved from a small elementary school to a large high school and was suddenly thrown into a class of almost 40 […]
Posted inHow to Fix Education
Getting Reading Right: The Education Week Online Summit
Getting Reading Right was the title and focus of the free online Education Week summit held on January 28, 2020. EdWeek reporters moderated with guest literacy specialists in six separate online chats framed by the results of the 2019 EdWeek Research Center survey on Early Reading Instruction. Online registered participants were eligible for a certificate […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Real Talk: How do you know when it is time to leave a school?
We’re approaching February and many schools are preparing to distribute contracts for next school year. Teachers are thinking about their plans for the next academic year. Some teachers may even write out literal pros and cons chart to weigh their options. As you can imagine, there are various factors involved in a teacher’s decision to […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
The Formal Observation: When Teachers and Administrators Dance
Every school year, teachers across the country play a sort of game. It is mostly an activity we play alone, like solitaire. We plan lessons in units to cover roughly 180 instructional days, with the intent that learning occurs. Most tenured teachers get one to two chances to demonstrate how we play this game and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Opinion: The War on Teachers is a Civil War
By Adam Sutton There is a war going on, and it’s a war against teachers. It is headlined by pushes for charter schools, attacks on teacher unions, and policies promoting edtech and testing over teachers. However, those headlines are only made possible by the civil war that pits teachers against teachers. While teachers squabble with […]