The Blog
"He sits there and keeps his down and just does his work. He's such a good student."
"Mary was diagnosed with cancer and we didn't even know! She's such a trooper."
"Juan barely talks and responds only when called upon."
"They're such a difficult student. They fidget all day and...
If you're staying up with the news, then you know Florida is under fire with the indoctrination in education that the current state government is passing as law. Most recently, some content was approved to be used as optional in Florida schools. The content is from an uaccredited not for profit...
Let me preface this entire blog post by saying that all white kids are not evil or bad. They are not our enemies. This isn't an 'all white people' blog post. This is about what is missing from education and how it's disproportionately affecting white children.
Recently, we posted on...
When we're planning for the new school year, we're often thinking about classroom set up, decorations, start-of-the-year activities/events, and even what our first book or reading might be to welcome students. While those aspects are important, they're not the crux of teaching. You can have all...
I know people really love this book and they struggle to let it go. One of the biggest hesitations expressed is that it's a great fodder for conversations about race(ism). However, my response to that is: it's written by a White woman and it is therefore limited in its scope. There will be...
When I started teaching, I worked at a high school. The youngest child I taught was 14. When I transitioned to a smaller independent school and started teaching 6th grade, I realized 11 year olds were still very, very, young! I remember the day one of them lost a tooth in class and I thought to...
When working with emergent bilinguals in the classroom it is important to have a well-developed toolbox of strategies that celebrates their strengths and builds on their needs. This work doesn’t have to be a mystery. It is about intention and preparation. In this blog post,...
Addressing difficult or tense conversations in a classroom is difficult enough, without being prepared with a set of norms or protocol. Not only can the topics be tense, but the process of the conversation can be challenging if people are not aware of what is appropriate or how to...
There is often confusion about what it means to teach socio-political context.
It’s actually a skill builder for students and leads to deeper learning, both content-based and social emotional learning. It helps with developing the core SEL competencies and it builds critical...