What is this “real world” you speak of? Who defines it? Is it the same “real world” for everyone? I was recently in conversation with colleagues about class attendance. Now, full disclosure, I do not have an attendance policy. I know my class is not the only thing going on in the lives of my …
I have dreamed of this moment for seven years. A fantasy from 11th grade still replays itself in my mind with crystalline clarity: My first day of school as a teacher. I’m wearing all professional black clothes with my hair slicked back in a bun. I’m stricter than I need to be because I want …
Yell and sit…sit and yell, get a little louder, be a little firmer…they’ll eventually listen-right? Wrong. I walked into a room recently where an educator was sitting on a bench demanding that the kids stop! She kept saying “I said stop, stop!…(a little louder) Stop it NOW!…(even louder) I said STOP STOP STOP!” Her face …
I posted a picture on our social media of a tweet from the 2006 MN Teacher of the Year Dr. Lee-Ann Stephens that read: Advice to a new elementary school teacher: never, every withhold recess from your students for any reason. They need the activity and you need them to have the activity. It shouldn’t …
Recently, a colleague asked me for recommendations of books about developing growth mindset. He wanted to be able to recommend something to parents whose children are “apathetic toward school.” Learners. Apathetic. Toward. School. Why may that be? Okay, yes, I can collect some literature. There are most certainly books. (I always always always recommend Willingham’s Why …
Every family is doing the best they can with the reality they are in. Full stop. I’ll say it again. Every family is doing the best they can with the reality they are in. Period. You may say, But, Jen, I have a family who **enter an atrocity adults enact upon children**. That family does …
Recently, after working with teachers on shifting our approach from punishing to teaching, a teacher in attendance emailed me saying, “At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to “buy in to it.”But the more I thought about it, the more compelled I felt.” Such a powerful statement and one I’ve thought about since. Let’s …
I am a big fan of mistake making. Well, not the making of the mistakes part so much but of the learning from mistakes, expecting mistakes, embracing mistakes. What if we flip the narrative on failure and, since we know mistakes happen, we anticipate them and respond to them with enthusiasm? Okay, stick with me …
It’s that time of the semester again. Course evaluations. True confession time: I don’t actually read mine. I am far too thin skinned for that. I send them to a trusted friend who reads them, tells me the things I need to know to improve my teaching and the course, and we leave the rest …
In teacher education programs, we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers for the civic profession of education. For me, this means registering students to vote in my classes, advocating for political activism, and encouraging them to see themselves as agents of political change (and to act accordingly!). Teaching is political. I’m following the walk …
