When I taught high school English, I worked hard to help my students avoid and move beyond the five-paragraph essay. In fact, I almost went crazy trying to pull better-than-five-paragraphs-essays out of my seniors. I was apt to tell students, “you are stuck in a five-paragraph box! GET OUT OF THE BOX!” I swore I would […]
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Posted inCurrent Events in Education, English Language Learners, ESOL, Featured, From the Front Lines, Professional Development, School Improvement, Social Justice, Uncategorized
Hidden Stories of the Average American Classroom
I recently attended a professional development presentation on poverty, and one slide that struck me was the structure of the average American classroom. In fact, I cannot stop thinking about it. Doris Baboian (our presenter and Director of Student Services in my district) noted a 2007 joint study by the U.S. Department of Education and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Uncategorized
Don't Doubt Homework, Bend it to Your Will
Homework can be a waste of time, if you let it be. Homework has become the mistreated and misunderstood stepchild of the teaching profession. Once a staple, a cornerstone, one of the pillars of combined effective teaching and responsible studentry (a made up word that I will trademark, eventually), “homework” has become almost a curse-word. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Uncategorized
Don’t Doubt Homework, Bend it to Your Will
Homework can be a waste of time, if you let it be. Homework has become the mistreated and misunderstood stepchild of the teaching profession. Once a staple, a cornerstone, one of the pillars of combined effective teaching and responsible studentry (a made up word that I will trademark, eventually), “homework” has become almost a curse-word. […]
Posted inFeatured, Legal, Recruitment & Retention, Uncategorized
Changing the Conversation: Teacher Tenure
“When I first started teaching, I thought that I was doing it for all of the right reasons: shorter hours, summers off, no accountability.”- Bad Teacher In one of my undergraduate courses, we analyzed the culture’s view of teachers. Although inspirational teachers like Mr. Feeny (Boy Meets World), Mr. Holland (Mr. Holland’s Opus), and Mr. […]
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A Teacher-Parent Perspective on Behavior Challenges
I am a teacher-parent and an autism mom. I know first hand that special education teachers have a tough job, but I also know that parents of children who exhibit difficult behaviors do too. When you add the complexity of teaching and parenting a child with autism, sometimes you feel a little lost. How much […]
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5 Things All Teacher Bloggers Should Do This Year to Get Millions of Page Views
Four years. The crazy thing is that I never meant to blog full-time, but blame it on my neurosis, I’ve managed to get over 5 million blog views since 2012. 5,000,000 page views when I wasn’t even trying. <screams> In addition to the page views, I’ve managed to find some of the best teachers/writers to […]
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5 Writers That Every High School Student Should Read Right Now
My favorite class to teach was (and will always be) American Literature. There’s something about teaching the sordid history of our country that gave me not only chills but opened my student’s eyes to the meaning of how literature can shape a country. In anticipation for my new group of flippant juniors who were counting down […]