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 …
A little about me in the month before my first year begins To be perfectly honest, I’m nervous about my first year of teaching. I’ve spent the summer reviewing learning theory and teaching strategies, reading radical books about equity and power dynamics in the classroom, building an elaborate teacher emergency kit filled with everything from …
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 …
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 …
As a teacher I want action. As a teacher I want to be able to tell my students that they are safe at school. I also want to tell my students they are safe at home. I want my students to BE SAFE. As a teacher I want this to be understood-gun violence is an …
In the wake of yet another school shooting, the government and members of the media are beating a familiar drum: more guns, not less, will put a stop to our decades-long national epidemic of mass shootings in schools. The President of the United States has been aggressively putting forward the idea that our nation needs …
What is Special Education? When I began my undergraduate studies in Elementary and Special Education, I hoped to gain a deeper understanding of how to support students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) within the general education classroom. I viewed the work of special education as a fund of knowledge that I would utilize as a …
Every Classroom, Every Day: Rethinking Inclusion Read More »
Kids need to learn to share. They have to share precious resources with siblings. They have to share with others at school. Sharing is a mainstay topic on Sesame Street. Parents pull their hair out because their kids “can’t” share. Sharing is caring, a way of life. Or is it? Merriam-Webster says “sharing” is 1) a …
