Some of the most vocal teachers today are self-professed Badass Teachers, or BATs for short. They’re full of opinions with action to match. We at TER sat down with Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director and Melissa Tomlinson, Asst. Executive Director to learn more about this movement. Jake Miller, The Educator’s Room: How did Badass Teachers […]
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Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, From the Front Lines, Literacy, Opinion
Celebrating the Little Victories in the Classroom
This morning, I was listening to Joel Osteen and I felt that the sermon was directed towards me. It was about celebrating small victories. As teachers, we want to change the world. We have big dreams for our students and we lose sight of the little things. While the big successes are wonderful, they are […]
Posted inFeatured
Why We Need Stubborn Teachers
Teacher burnout is a problem and we all know the statistics. Roughly half of teachers leave the profession within their first five years. The percentage of teachers who leave is especially high in schools with over 80% of students qualifying for Free or Reduced Lunch. You know there’s a morale problem in your profession when the […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies
What Makes a Great Unit?
With so many skills and so many concepts, units are a necessity. We can become overwhelmed with the amount of material we have to cover in a short time. I have learned I only focus on one unit at a time. A unit is a set amount of skills or concepts tied to a literary […]
Posted inFeatured, Teacher Burnout
Smothering Burnout: Tips for Teachers On the Edge of Teacher Burnout
I am in my twentieth year of teaching. I know I am doing what I was created to do. I know I am teaching where I need to be teaching. But after two decades of teaching, the ‘B’ word has begun to haunt me: I am burning out. My dad used to always say if […]
Posted inFeatured, Opinion
15 Things My Newborn Son Taught Me About Education
On November 1st at 11:05p, Jonah, my newborn son, entered the world, joining my wife and me. While I’ve taught nearly 1,500 students in my 10 years of education, I hadn’t learned as much from one until I had after staying home with my new found family. Here are a dozen things he’s taught my wife and me that […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, Opinion, Social Justice
Police, Black Students, and Teachers
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the video clip of Ben Fields, Richland County (SC) school resource officer, where he picked up a young lady (who was black) and pulled her from her chair. I’ve done so because it astounds me that this situation occurred in our schools, but what also stuns […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, From the Front Lines
Rebels with a Clue: How Teenagers Give Respect to those that Earn it
By now most of us have seen the video(s) of Officer Ben Fields aggressively removing a student from a classroom at Spring Valley High School. Most likely, if you are like me, you’ve read 100 articles on the incident and perhaps even voiced your opinion through various social media outlets. As I read people’s responses […]