Last week, TheEducatorsRoom hosted a Twitter Chat titled “Is Teaching Political?” It was a conversation prompted in part by President Trump’s announcement of a commission--The 1776 Commission--to design a “patriotic education” program one month earlier. At the heart of his plan is an opinion that “left-wing indoctrination in our schools" is destroying the country. Instead [...]
The F Word: Feminism in 2020 I’ll never forget the moment I explained feminism to a freshman boy. In my first year of teaching, a precocious student asked me why I used “Ms.” in my name. My partner and I are committed to each other without the institution of marriage and childless by choice. But, [...]
Although it’s been a rough start to the 20-2021 school year for most school districts in the United States, school districts are still required to meet the service needs of their special education students. Under IDEA, the Bible for Special Services, also known as the Individuals with Disabilities Act, denotes in detail what our special [...]
For teachers, it is a fact of life that they teach lessons. One of those lessons is to help students grapple with new, difficult, and controversial ideas. To help students make sense and place those ideas within their own experiences is part of the job; I enjoy it. So, this week, as my frustrations in [...]
"It's not having what you want," quips Roslyn Assistant Superintendent Pam Gluckin in her Long Island accent, "it's wanting what you got." And what educators got from HBO's Bad Education was a harrowing detail of a pair of school administrators gone rogue with the school district's treasury, sacking $11.2 million before they were caught... by [...]