Please do not tell your students yet. The words from the principal flashed at me in neon while my body sank into the swivel chair at the front of the class. I fixed my face or so I thought, aware of the many eyes that would be on me now. Instinctively, as if worried […]
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Posted inAsk a Teacher
Teach to the Rest: How the Pandemic Could Be the Best Thing for Education in 20 Years
What’s getting you through 2020’s chaos? For me, it’s the knowledge that education could change, and not by a little. As with all things education, I’m not alone of course, And many others have come before me. I know because I used the pandemic to read them all. Reardon and Timar. Ravitch and Tatum, Delpit […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
OPINION: I Chose The New Deputy Secretary of Education Myself Once
The school in which I teach, and now send my daughter to learn, lies in one of the lowest socioeconomic neighborhoods in San Diego. Nearly all of its students qualify for free and reduced lunch, the vast majority of the students speak English as a second language and teachers teach their hearts out. But there’s […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
What Does It Take To Keep A Republic?
After months of their own false accusations about voter fraud, many GOP leaders hid under the pews during the insurrection. Afterward, with public pressure mounting, some changed their votes to certify the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Just like that. And as I was considering their quick change of mind, I listened to […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Turning The Page on Tragedy
My close friend and long-time colleague, Michelle, died three weeks ago. She was only forty years old. We shared thousands and thousands of students together over the past eighteen years. Her classroom is on the same floor as mine, just around the corner. We coached speech and debate together in our early twenties, created an […]
Posted inHow to Fix Education
Teachers In Action: From the Classroom to the Convention
It was a busy week. My student government kids teleconferenced with the Broward Education Foundation to award them $1,000 they had collected through the spare change in the cafeteria. The SCA students wanted to help the victims of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. The organization receiving the gift looks after the social, economic, and academic […]
Posted inSocial Justice
Why Join The Teachers’ Union?
For most of my teaching career, I did not belong to a professional organization, such as a teacher’s union. I always rationalized that with a teacher’s salary, I could not afford the dues. So for all those years, I was someone who benefitted from the strength in numbers that the teachers’ union provided, but I […]
Posted inInterviews
Moving From Teacher to Private Employee:Tips on How to Start the Process
Last week, over 300 Chicago teachers lost their jobs. Every year, teachers leave the profession for a myriad of reasons, but then come back because the private sector doesn’t seem to recognize our skills outside the classroom. Doesn’t matter the reason for not being in the classroom anymore, being jobless with a background in teaching […]