It’s the end of August, 2020. I sit in my office (it’s only a classroom if students are in it). The glare of the computer screen casts pale blue. Bleary-eyed from lesson planning, navigating folders, grading too-little and obviously phoned-in
Read More
Sending Up Flares: Teachers Are Calling For Help
“Is anyone else feeling like they are just hanging on by their fingernails?” This question, asked by a middle school teacher, interrupted a grade level discussion about a common formative assessment. The question opened the floodgates. Anxiety, dread, and frustration
Read More
COVID is SCARIER than Halloween!
There is nothing wrong with a fun scare. Most people will agree that the opportunity to be shocked in this way often ends in laughter and good memories. Halloween is one time of year when it is ok to play
Read More
Online Classroom Management
I officially had my first discipline referral this year. In an online learning environment, it does feel a little bit embarrassing to have discipline issues, but, I guess it is just as easy to break the rules from home as
Read More
Time to Vote, or Not
It’s time again for what’s becoming a quadrennial visit into the world of social studies. Four years ago in Teaching and Practicing the Civics of Voting, I argued that the merits of not voting should be discussed in lessons about
Read More
A Most Excellent Antidote
In any October that is not 2020, I, along with countless other Americans, will line up to enter haunted houses. We line up to walk through a land of make-believe. It heightens our senses, brings us a sense of whimsy,
Read More
Students Speak About School 2020
If you have been reading Stories from School Arizona (this blog), you probably sense that, as challenging as “emergency” teaching and learning was in the spring (to steal a term from Fisher, Frey and Hattie), the scene in schools this
Read MoreWhat’s Going to Work?
Remember the Wonder Pets? It was a TV show on Nick Jr that featured an adorable trio of heroes—a chick, a hamster, and a turtle. In each episode, they would combine their unique skill sets and rescue a poor, stranded
Read More
Teacher/Parent Paradox
I left for work the other morning and realized that I would not see my son for another 12 plus hours. He would be at home, on his own, working through his junior year. Leading a district in COVID times
Read More
Change is the Only Constant
Teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic has been TOUGH. What many people might not know is how much work teachers, administrators, and other school personnel put in behind the scenes when decisions are made at the state or district level. Systems,
Read More