Recently the conversation about social justice in education and generally has shifted from equality to equity. As many before me have noted, equality focuses on every student getting the same resources or supports. Equity, on the other hand, requires that we give every young person what they need to be successful. This idea has also been […]
Social Justice
Five Books That Will Make Your World Bigger
Someone once said that reading can make your world bigger. Someone also said that reading can be a mirror to your own true self. I projected both of these thoughts on the screen in my classroom recently as a way for my 8th grade ELA students to reflect on the books they read during the […]
Modeling Kindness in the Classroom
Lord knows we need more of it. No need to recount here what we’re experiencing today as a global community. As educators, we know that we cannot just read the headlines and go off to our jobs and try to forget them, part of our jobs is dealing with those troubles on a very intimate […]
Don’t Fear Conflict in Your Classroom
I’m in my eighth year of teaching, and I’m still constantly realizing new things about teaching. Most recently, I realized that I was afraid of conflict in my classroom. Since I started teaching, it’s been drilled into my head that the first and foremost marker of a successful teacher is strong classroom management. Classroom management can […]
Trump’s First 100 Days in My Classroom
When I reflect on Donald Trump’s first 100 days I think back to May of 2016. At the time I wrote that teachers had a moral obligation to stand up to Donald Trump’s hate speech. I did not write this as a Democrat or because of any other partisan or political affiliations. I wrote this […]
Science Under Fire: A Day After the March for Science
In the morning hours of April 22, 2017—Earth Day—scientists, teachers, students, concerned citizens, and activists gathered in Washington D.C. to show their support for a single subject: science. There were no shouts for NGSS, no calls against Common Core, no jeering at climate change. Instead, all who gathered for the March for Science were attempting […]
Teaching Black Consciousness and White Privilege
One matter we have gotten over very quickly as a country is the notion, beginning in 2008 and carried throughout the Obama presidency, that we now live in a “post-racial” society. Â The fact that an African American was twice-elected to the nation’s highest office gave rise to the idea that racial discord can now be […]
Sesame Street’s Julia: Changing the Way We See Autism
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  This quote from women’s rights advocate and cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead – could also be Sesame Street’s mission statement. Since its premiere on November 10, 1969, Sesame Street has brought the fundamentals […]