I recently read a post on Facebook… A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead,
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I Am Afraid of Babies
The word makes me shudder, cringe and cower. Unless it is preceeded by the phrase, “You’ve come a long way,” I don’t want to hear about babies. Or pregnancies. Shower? It better involve a spout, steam, and a whole lot
Read MoreWhat If? (Part 2)
How could providing test or quiz proctoring change the way we use our time as teachers?
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Spontaneous Professional Development
Teachers rank adequate opportunities for professional development as a reason for job satisfaction. Most of us, I bet, have experienced PDs that transformed our practice forever. As often as that, I bet, we’ve experienced mandatory PDs that numbed the mind,
Read MoreAssessing Learning Versus Taking Assessments
I once tried to create a stop motion feature called "Phil in the Bubble." Here, the protagonist is a student who sits alone in a black and white silent classroom taking a test. Bubbles emerge from his multiple choice test
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Observations regarding the 2012 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher
The annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, based on surveys of teachers and principals conducted between October and November, 2012, has just been released. Comparing its contents with last year’s report, media coverage, and the Society for Human Resource
Read MoreNational Board Renewal
I became a National Board Certified Teacher on November 19, 2004. At that time I was a kindergarten teacher and quite frankly I thought I would always be a classroom teacher. I had no idea the journey of accomplished teaching
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“I Discovered Something Crazy!”
I went treasure hunting. I sought the definitive metaphor to contrast the power of all that is wrong in education with the power of all that is right. Yin Yang? Nah. A transformative professional development doesn’t need to be balanced
Read MoreWhat If? (#1)
At the Arizona K12 Center’s Teacher Leadership Institute last summer, the phrase of the week was “solutions-oriented.” Strategically, this angle is necessary for teachers to be heard in education reform. The stereotype of the bitter, worn-down, socially stunted school-marm in
Read MoreWhen Teachers Aren’t Invited
During my prep period today, I ran across a discussion between a few people on Twitter. It revolved around a Harvard Gazette article where five experts engaged in a discussion regarding how to "jump-start effective learning." I read the experts and found
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