Somewhere in between our 4th or 5th move as a family, I realized that teaching in various states and placements each had its own flavor. While teaching in public school had the widest services available for students, my experience was that services were often slowed or hindered by the bureaucracy of the public school system. … Continue reading The Perfect School Placement For Any Student
Hey there. I need to be straight with teachers. We are really sucking at helping parents access our digital classroom tools. I know. You're busy. You're underpaid. You've got way too many kids to keep a handle on. And parents need to take responsibility for their own children. And sometimes parents need to back off … Continue reading Teachers: We Kind Of Suck At Helping Parents Access Digital Classwork And We Can Fix It!
The cycle of promise, then failure, then patting each other on the backs again until the next failure, is the abuse cycle. And public education loves its abusive relationship with teachers and students.
Our nation expects teachers to pump out socially and academically competent students each year. Not only do they expect these standards, but they expect teachers to do it with minimal resources and income. Then when teachers fail to meet our expectations, parents and policy makers become angry at the teachers. However, because teachers are not … Continue reading Parents Need To Inspect More and Expect Less From Education
After much research on kindergarten and how it effects future success, this post answers the age old question: If my child has a summer or fall birthday, can I (or should I) send them to kindergarten the year they are turning 5?
Finland has become famous for their play based learning for kindergarten aged children. This has turned heads because academically, Finland always ranks high on their test performance. And since the United States continues to place high importance on eradicating poverty through our education system, and simultaneously working to ensure our future workforce is the best in the world, the US is searching for the best methods of teaching our students.
Every year teachers try to make fresh goals... keeping them tends to be the tricky part. These 15 might be on your list this year too!
A Letter To Social Media Social media, you've done it again. Somehow you have taken a brilliant way to connect and share ideas, and turned it into a guilt-fest. There is a never ending feed of beautiful crafty teachers, who spend hours on the tiniest details, and their own money on beautiful furniture for the … Continue reading Why Teachers Should Not Feel Guilty About An Ugly Classroom
Mental health for educators continues to be an issue. While we are still not entirely sure what percentage of teachers leave the profession in the first five years (read more about this from The Washington Post), we do know that teachers are still reporting an increase of "poor mental health" days when reflecting on their … Continue reading How To Increase Happiness While Teaching