In my brain lives a little monster. I know I’m not alone. We all have little monsters lurking in our skulls. They hate anything rest related and love to do things like leap up and down and shout, “DID YOU SET THE ALARM FOR 5???” …right as sleep is about to overtake you. At the […]
students
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, Middle School
What I Fear For my Students
We live a great nation. A nation where you can be whatever you want to be. I preach the American Dream in my classroom, I have to because I am an American Literature teacher. I love and believe in this country, but we are a country with problems. I teach at a poor, rural school […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Art of Teaching
Is teaching a science, a system, an art, or all of these? There are many pundits who will say it is a system and anyone who follows it can teach. As a former student of mine would say, “BZZZZZZ! Wrong answer!” A whabam system is only as good as the person who applies it and […]
Posted inUncategorized
Elementary Educators Can (and Should!) Celebrate LGBT Pride Month
June isn’t just the last month of school for many of us. It is also Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month. While teachers know teaching about diverse histories, cultures and identities should never be relegated to one month, I still welcome Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Asian and Pacific […]
Posted inFeatured
Why Teachers Stay…
There are plenty of reasons to leave the teaching profession, but there has to be a reason we stay, right? Every teacher has different reasons for staying, and they are very personal. Some of us have several reasons and some of us only have one. Many people forget that we are human. We need compassion and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How to Build a Classroom Library on a Barely-There Budget
After attending a Penny Kittle workshop in spring 2014, I decided to set up a Reader’s Workshop in my twelfth-grade English class to radically change the reading/literature instruction. In order to do that, I needed a classroom library—an extensive one if I wanted the RW to work. The problem was I had 104 titles—many out […]
Posted inFeatured, Middle School
What I Miss Over the Summer
At the end of the year, we are all “done.” Done with the kids, the administration, the testing, and even each other. The kids pushed us to a breaking point and we not only crossed it, but are holding on to the branch with only one hand. End of the year evaluations are coming in […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, High School, Uncategorized
How to Keep Kids Reading All Summer
Each fall teachers ring their hands and furrow their brows at the lack of reading their students did over the summer. We bemoan the fact that the summer reading lists we hand out are shoved in a backpack in June and not looked at again until, well, for many kids, never. Many teachers lecture high […]