Coronavirus-canceled testing brings an opportunity. As a teacher and parent in the state of New York, news that standardized testing might be canceled this year brings mixed emotions. I suspected the closures due to COVID-19 might come to this, and for many years I have been pretty open about my personal feelings about abuse-by-test. My […]
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If History Teaches Us Anything, It’s We Overcome
I teach American history most days to an engaged, amazing group of students. But this week, they didn’t want to engage in history; instead, they want to engage in the present. These 8th-grade students have plenty of questions, as many of us do. There are some who shared they have family members with COVID-19 – one in Chester […]
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 […]