Lately it seems that our inboxes, news feeds, and social media streams are flooded with worrisome messages about “COVID slide” and “Learning Loss.” While it’s true that the past year has been filled with challenges, we invite teachers, parents, and other stakeholders to join us in a
As a young girl, my mother introduced me to the idea of first impressions. She emphasized how my physical appearance and my first words in new interactions would cause others to form an almost instant impression of me. She also explained that it would be extremely challenging to change negative first impressions once they were
No matter how you are teaching--remotely, hybrid, or face-to-face--your students have a plethora of unique, real world examples of mathematics all around their homes and neighborhoods. They just may not recognize it! Student-Led Math Show-and-Tell is a simple activity that provides students the opportunity to
Math practice doesn’t have to be all exercises and worksheets. You know that, but do your students’ parents know that? Families probably know far more about teaching now after supervising hours of Zoom lessons during the various degrees of sheltering in place that families have experienced since the
Why? Whether we talk about it or not, our students regularly experience the impacts of social privilege, oppression, opportunity, power, and activism every day. Children in schools and communities are faced each day with disparities in opportunity and are often forced into systems of inequity that maintain social status quo. It is
We have spent the last weeks watching many schools close their doors–some for the rest of this semester—to control the number of COVID-19 infections. I am excited to see our society’s strong commitment to public health. As many of us teachers face the daunting task of serving our students by transitioning to online instruction, most for us the first
Rumi poet, Hafiz, wrote, “The words you speak become the house you live in” to emphasize the power of the words we use and the energy, beliefs, and practices that those words actualize in our daily lives. What if we applied Hafiz’s quotation to our
The importance of struggle comes into play when someone is learning to tie their shoes, drive a car, or perfect a jump shot. Working through the struggle allows the learner to be successful. A question to reflect upon: Do you value this same struggle for
Sixteen years ago I had an opportunity to visit 40 classrooms in 40 different schools. I was in elementary classrooms and secondary classrooms, in English speaking classrooms and in French speaking classrooms, in public schools and private schools, and in low socio-economic settings and high
