By Thomas Courtney Last year, I wrote about the opportunity we had to change the very way in which our schools operated. Twenty years ago, teaching to the test transformed our educational system. To many, the pandemic was simply the last piece of the puzzle that revealed the picture of what our schools had become. […]
Pandemic Pedagogy
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Student Discipline: If the students ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy
I remember my first classroom. It was bursting at the seams with posters, fairy lights, rugs, artwork, and anything that I could squeeze onto the walls in hopes of inspiring students to want to learn. My sweet Guinea pig students were not only dealing with me trying to find my feet as an educator, but they also had to battle the distractions they were fighting in trying to pay attention to me amongst the collage of my excitement suffocating them; on all sides!
Posted inOpinion
During COVID We Ignored These Dress Code Trends, Let’s Ditch Them Now
When teachers and students got sent home in March 2020, one of the many school norms suddenly ignored was the dress code for students and teachers alike. My own children used to normally wearing, khakis and polo shirts, suddenly lounged in athletic shorts and t-shirts as they sat in front of computers, completed homework, and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Why I Microwaved My Strawberries: An Analogy for this Entire School Year
Setting the Stage It’s Tuesday and I’ve just closed my classroom door so I can eat my lunch. I have pulled apart students in two separate fights already in the first part of the morning and I’ve heard rumors of others happening through the building. My first-period lesson didn’t happen because the technology wasn’t working. […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Keeping Up With the Tech-Savvy Teacher Next Door
Jerremiah Johnson For years I’ve dabbled in technology integration within my classroom, or what I thought was integration. I taught my students to use Word documents and PowerPoint and eventually moved to Google docs and even shared assignments through a Google classroom. I thought I was doing the best I could all while keeping up […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Parable of a Teacher’s Post-Pandemic Pause
“I gotta fight every night to prove my love!” I will never forget this scene from the movie The Five Heartbeats when the boyfriend comes back to the table and find his girl with another man. Now, how in the world am I going to relate that line to teaching? For those of us in […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Students Are Coming Back to School: How Can We Engage Them Post-Pandemic?
Back to School: I saw online that hand sanitizer is 70% off at Target, which seems akin to a groundhog poking its head above the soil to marvel at Spring’s arrival. What’s the significance of discounts at Target? Well, a discount on hand sanitizer is symbolic of the pandemic nearing an end. Vaccines were so […]
Posted inCoronavirus
Reinventing Pandemic Schooling: More than Making Lemonade from Lemons
Dr. Helen Hoffman is a veteran teacher, author, and advocate for better schools. With 30 years of teaching at both the high school and college level, Helen’s mission is to shape the future of education by helping teachers create school experiences that are more engaging, enjoyable, and purposeful than our current ones. Her new book, […]