Early in my career as a high school English teacher, I learned the importance of building relationships with my students. I discovered that in order for me to teach and learn with my students, I had to build a dialogic, which would allow me to
Today I yelled at a 9 year old. He was ignoring me over and over again. He rolled his eyes at me. He laughed at me. And I snapped. I yelled at him. I yelled at him loud and I embarrassed him. It was during my dismissal
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a common condition that every teacher will most likely encounter in the classroom during his or her career. In fact, estimates place the number of school-aged kids who have an ADHD diagnosis at about 11%, or about 1
Sometimes we all need little reminders to keep a growth mindset. Here’s some food for thought about making one slight adjustment to dramatically increase engagement in our classrooms. When I was a first and second year classroom teacher, I spent the first weeks of school making
1. Pencils Pencils have been the bane of my existence as a teacher. I have been through every possible system of pencil lending. I have used sign-out sheets. I have sent home a notice to refill supplies each time a child didn’t have a pencil. I
Two things happened this week that I thought were positive signs. These come just two weeks before the end of our first semester. I guess that puts us at about the halfway mark. Both had to do with the nitty-gritty of the classroom. First, if you
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA; also called the Every Student Succeeds Act—ESSA) was reauthorized approximately a year ago with full implementation on July 1, 2017. The Act guides virtually all facets of public education in our country, and it is notable in that
There is a rather strange relationship in schools between time and learning. I was first made aware of this strangeness by my friend Ray McNulty, Dean of Education at Southern New Hampshire University, and have heard other educators comment on it as well. The oddity
In my second blog I talked about how traveling to dozens of schools and talking with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students had, over time, aggregated into an abstraction in my head. Especially regarding collegiality and time, my new role in one concrete school,
The last few weeks seem to have generated lots of tweets and blog posts on creating positive learning environments and achieving desired behavioral outcomes with our students. Many of the posts also speak to the need to steer clear of rewards, tokens, or awards as
