Guest Writer: Courtney Mathews States across the country have shut down public and private schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in parents having to manage their child’s schoolwork overnight. While the majority of teachers had to shift their instruction to meet distance learning standards. Some districts have been distance learning since the […]
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The Lost Identity of Teachers: The COVID-19 Story
Due to COVID-19, on Thursday evening, it was announced that all schools in my state would close for two weeks starting the following Monday. Immediately, teachers began cloning themselves, figuring out how to recreate their daily learning experiences in absentia. Remember, a teacher’s value is their ability to listen and analyze the needs of a […]
It’s Taken a Pandemic To Save the Mental Health of Teachers
As I sit here to write this piece, it’s 5:09 pm on the east coast and I have just made it in after a long day of preparing to be out of school for at least two weeks due to the Coronavirus pandemic occurring around the world. While the world has seemingly broken into a […]
A WIN for Teachers
Guest Writer: Charlotte Walker A few years ago under new school leadership, our school instituted WIN Time. WIN is an acronym for “What I need” and is a 30 minute, four days a week reading intervention block. For the first time in the 20 years I had worked for the district, our classroom para-educators were […]
President Mike Bloomberg Would Be a Nightmare for Public Schools
#NeverBloomberg There are so many reasons Mike Bloomberg should not win the Democratic presidential primary. Using his billions to buy votes, his racist rationale for the 2008 housing crisis, his similarly racist and stubborn commitment to stop and frisk policing, and his misogynistic treatment of women are just a few of his recently publicized disqualifications. […]
Dear Senator Warren: There are 3.2 Million Public School Teachers Who Know What We Need in Education
February 26, 2020 Dear Senator Warren: At the Democratic Primary Debate in Charleston, South Carolina, you proclaimed that you would hire a teacher as your Secretary of Education. If elected in 2020, your decision to hire a public school educator for this cabinet position would be a positive step away from the current administration’s choice […]
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 […]
Survival Mode on Auto Pilot
We’ve all been there. Survival Mode on Auto-Pilot. At some point in every teacher’s career, they experience a school district, school, or classroom that they realize isn’t going to change. They’ve made complaints, documented, changed classroom management systems, altered and differentiated the curriculum, and scheduled meeting after meeting, after meeting… yet nothing changes. It’s at […]