Posts Tagged ‘help for public school teachers’
Why Do We Always Talk About Teachers, Not Administrators?
The discourse in education always disproportionately focuses on teachers, as if we are the root of all school evils. We never talk about ineffective Superintendents who make $250,000 a year but still need an $800 a month car allowance in a [...]
All Those Damn Kids Have Cell Phones Though, Don’t They?
My uncle is a Republican. He says he is a Democrat, but then begins defending rich people like they are going to be thrown out of their houses and begin starving any minute now. This is common Republican reasoning—defending people who own most of [...]
Making Education Look Good
When you ask a classroom full of high school students who wants to be a teacher, they start laughing so hard it’s almost impossible to bring the class back to order. “A teacher?” They cry. “Why would anyone want to be a teacher?”And [...]
Parent Outreach? Not in an Educational Landscape of Opposites
Oprah’s Teacher of the Year, Ron Clark, has an article on CNN.com today about the drawbacks of parental involvement. He gives examples of teachers and even principals who are leaving education because they are so annoyed at having to deal with [...]
Teach4Real Greatest Hits: Let’s Make a Deal: How to Help Fading (and Failing) Students at the End of the Year
For the next month I am going to celebrate one year of blogging with some of my greatest hits. Here is one about helping failing students at the end of the year.Everyone loves the end of the school year, especially the teachers and students. [...]
When You’re Happy, They’re Happy
I recently had a baby boy, and during the expected lack of sleep and increased irritability on my own part, I noticed something very important. When I am in a bad mood, easily annoyed and snappy, so are the students.It’s not like I’ve been [...]
Weaving Together Valentine’s Day and Shakespeare
Valentine’s Day was a disaster. In all fairness, it’s a disaster every year. All the extra hormones flying through the air really affect a high school campus. Satisfied girls walk around with roses and teddy bears to the detriment of those [...]
A Lesson on Urban Identity
I taught a seminar for seniors this week while their regular teacher was out having babies. It was a class full of low-income urban students trying to get into college. I decided to do three days on Identity, and get them thinking about who they are [...]
Getting GHETTO Kids to Write Essays
LESSON PLAN: Writing Body ParagraphsAs I’ve said before in my blog, I teach a class of 9th graders who are reading at about a 5th and 6th grade level. A high percentage of them are Special-Ed students, and most of them are GHETTO in [...]
Teaching: The Profession I Will Eventually Leave
“Teaching is not a profession. It is a never-ending entry-level vocation, divorced from foundational understandings of training, accountability, and advancement. If we are to enact meaningful reform, we must rescue teaching from its status as [...]