Ask teachers about their long-term teacher friends and most will name and describe a teacher or small group of teachers they met in their first days and months as a classroom teacher. Many say their friends found them, they did not find their friends. An early teacher friend is a Horton, just like the Seuss elephant who singularly heard the microscopic community of Whoville. A teacher Horton hears and sees starting teachers and connects with them. But not every teacher is so lucky as to have a Horton. Continue reading
Hortons Hear Teachers
AI Is Icarus Deja Vu
The right rule “of thumb” is — AI is approved when the goal is investigative, consensus building, problem solving, and efficiency AND AI is not approved when the goal is original thought, critical thinking, and skill development. Using AI should not be generalized to all student work but attached to the goals we are teaching children to achieve. Continue reading
Teaching Is Caring and More
When a caring teacher and child connect, we see how a significant adult can add greatly to the quality of how and what a child learns. Teaching fundamentally is caring about the adults children today will become in the future. Continue reading
Teach For Enduring and Expansive Learning Not Coverage. Know the Difference.
Coverage teaching is like the proverbial river that is a mile wide and an inch deep – it emphasizes breadth without depth. In my naivety as a young educator I believed that if something was worth teaching it was worth learning well and that meant deeper teaching and learning. Conversely, why waste time and energy on teaching things we did not plan for children to learn well? I still believe this. Continue reading
In an over-informationed world we are under-literate.
Is being literate critical to adult life? Given how much information adults are exposed to every day, can we expect adults with varying levels of literacy skills to effectively consider and understand the constant barrage of information? The answer is “no,” yet our world ultimately spins on the voices and decisions of under-literate adults. Continue reading
Teach Up to Cause Children to Meet Higher Expectations
The conversation about the actions needed to move achievement upward and the commitment to those actions is what bridges the distance between having high expectations and achieving high expectations. Continue reading
Teachers of Bygone and New Eras
The profession of teaching has entered a new era. Most new teachers will be as professional as the business of teaching requires them to be. They will work their contracts. Life for them sets aside the eight hours each day and nine months needed for their teaching job so that they can live their non-job lives. Continue reading
Burying a Myth About Rigor – It Is Too Easy If Every Student Gets a Good Grade
“If every student gets good grades, the instruction has lost its rigor.” End of discussion and I fought the urge to throw my pen at him. Continue reading
Good Classroom Management is Not Easy; It is a Learned and Practiced Skill and Art
Field experience tells us that fitting a student management philosophy to a teacher is like fitting shoes. One will feel better, wear better, and be more satisfying than all others. Therefore, teacher prep programs must teach teachers a variety of philosophies and strategies so that a teacher can find a personal plan that refines student behavior and enhances student learning. Continue reading
Improve How We Treat Our Rookies to Resolve Teacher Attrition
First-year teaching is a survival of the fittest contest. National statistics are not changing and 40% of classroom teachers leave teaching in their first five years in the profession. Stop and consider that fact for a moment. A teacher pays $80,000 or more for a baccalaureate degree and teaching license. Their move to a new town and investment in renting or buying a home is a huge emotional as well as financial commitment. Then they walk away from that effort and expense. The reasons must be ginormous. Continue reading