I have watched over the past year while my 1st grader learned to “go to school” through a screen. My children attend a public Waldorf school and there is little to no technology or screens in classrooms. The switch to distance learning for my daughters, 6 and 11, was big. At first, if I am […]
The more I read and talk with teachers and schools the more evident it is that educators have been pushed to their absolute limit during the pandemic. This time of year is always a mix of fatigue from the school and relief that the days are getting longer and the summer hiatus is around the […]
There is a lot of conversation around student learning losses due to the pandemic. But there seems to be less talk about the toll it has had on teachers. I was working with a school faculty last week and during our training session the principal shared that the district had decided that they would go […]
“Little is known about the effectiveness of learning at home for the entire student population and what this means for the development of skills. However, there are indications from multiple countries that many children had little effective instruction. For a significant proportion of pupils, learning during school closures was apparently almost non-existent. For example, early […]
“Highly effective teachers use procedures and systems to maximize the value of each minute of learning...To be clear, these highly effective teachers sweat the details not because they are obsessed with control but because they see that this attention to detail translates into student learning.” Steven Farr, Teaching As Leadership Sweat The Details From my […]
Of all the challenges posed by the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, this may be the greatest: if we are truly to be a nation of college-goers, we must not only raise the bar on what students learn but we must also leverage an understanding of noncognitive factors to teach adolescents how to […]
We Learn Better In Community When a classroom grows into a learning community everyone in the room can sense it. Humans are communal beings and we are drawn to community. When students are active members in a learning community it amplifies engagement, accountability, and learning. Transforming classrooms into learning communities is something effective educators must […]
A Duty To Uncover Potential As educators we have a responsibility to uncover the potential in every student. A no opt policy can aid us in fulfilling this duty. I told the story in this article of a student I observed in a classroom who was allowed to opt out. When asked about this student […]
Students Want To Engage A few years ago I was visiting a high school and had the opportunity to observe a class and watched the following story unfold. While the teacher was starting class, with a lecture (yawn), a student walked in tardy. What I found interesting is that this teacher did not acknowledge the […]
“Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.” Urie Bronfenbrenner Absent and Struggling Over the past 20 years of teaching I have identified a trend when working with some of my most challenging students - they were often the students who were either chronically truant or occasionally absent […]
