by Jennifer M. Sierra I’ve never been a “lunch bunch” kind of teacher. I’ve spent most of my career teaching high school—mostly juniors, a few sophomores, a few seniors. Even now, in my fourth year of teaching middle school, the concept of a lunch bunch is still way too elementary for me. Additionally, it’s […]
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Posted inTeacher Self Care
Smile for the Camera: Adjusting to the New “Normal” in a COVID-19 Classroom
This year, teaching is lonely. Like many other districts across the country, we are teaching and learning online for the foreseeable future. I desperately want to be back in person with my students, but our national leadership is more concerned with political gain than American life. Wearing a mask is a political statement, cases aren’t […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
COVID-19 Has Made Me Rethink My Instruction: 5 Online Tools to Use in Language Arts Classes
We’re a week away from returning to in-person teaching for the new school year and the obvious anxieties and fear about being back at school, where the spread of COVID-19 feels inevitable and is on everyone’s minds. This year, teaching will take on new challenges and risks, and no amount of mental preparation will make […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Reimagining Schools After COVID-19
Since March, the United States has been in a pandemic due to COVID-19. Over 189,000 lives have been lost to this virus. Our country is being led by an unfit leader who has appointed a Secretary of Education with no experience as a public educator. It almost seems like we’re in the twilight zone. Personally, […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Here’s To Our First Year As Teachers During COVID-19
Guest Writer: Callie LaBarbera On Friday at 11:30 a.m. I stared at my cellphone willing the alert that our Governor was live to pop up on my screen. In NYS, I was not alone in doing this. Parents and teachers alike sat with bated breath waiting to hear if the Governor would give us the […]
Posted inFrom the Front Lines, Opinion
Opinion: The White House Just Gave My School 8 Recommendations for Reopening Schools During COVID-19. Here’s Mine.
By Thomas Courtney President Donald J. Trump just declared that teachers and students should go back to school and he gave us eight pieces of advice–may be to help swallow this magical pill. For a national symptom that in his fumbling idiocy he caused in at least part, and for which he takes no responsibility. […]
Posted inFeatured
DON’T BE FOOLED: The Fall Will Be Difficult, But Teachers Were Demoralized Long Before COVID-19
Yes, the next few months of American education might well go down as the most challenging time in the careers of most classroom teachers. But the waves of change instigated by the Coronavirus crisis should not obscure the real story of American education. It is this story that policy-makers and parents should heed. While the […]
Posted inCOVID-19
They Can’t Fire Us All: Illegal Striking in the Time of COVID-19
All it takes is opening up social media, turning on the news, or checking the headlines to see a parade of opinions about opening up schools in the fall. Unfortunately, the opinion getting the most attention is that teachers should sit down, shut up, and get back in the classroom regardless of the circumstances of […]