Life in the Classroom Archives - Page 49 of 51

“Oh, the Humanity!”

April 4, 2011Alaina Adams Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership

Now that I've moved into the last grading period of the school year, the magnitude of the year has started to sink in. In August, I felt scared – the national trends in education seemed daunting and overwhelming (to say the

Value Added

March 29, 2011Eve Rifkin Education, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mentoring

Ciril earned a B on his sonnet recital. I’m not sure how a value-added model can possibly calculate all that he has accomplished. But he knows, and we know, that the most important value that is ever added through the hard work of teachers and students will never be accurately depicted on a graph.

A New Metric System

February 26, 2011Eve Rifkin Assessment, Books, Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom

Ravitch believes that as long as charters are working strictly with at-risk kids who are on the verge of dropping out of school, that is just fine. But as soon as charters start to attract the “regular” kids, they become the enemies of the public education system.

The Heart of Teaching

February 7, 2011Alaina Adams Assessment, Current Affairs, Education, Life in the Classroom, Parent Involvment, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

February brings many flutters and shudders for teachers. The flutters are connected to the chocolate, Sweetheart candy, and wonderfully-sappy cards that tell us how we’re the best teachers ever. The shudders come from a month full of test-prep and the emergence of

Leaving the Classroom?

January 24, 2011Alaina Adams Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

So I’m reading Katy Farber’s book, Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus, which explores the demands, challenges, and rewards experienced by classroom teachers across the country who are staying in the trenches of public education

So Few Students; So Much Time

January 6, 2011Eve Rifkin Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mathematics, Parent Involvment, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

Every single student, all 190 of them, have a 30-minute long, midyear conference to which they invite parents, guardians, peers, teachers, and other staff members. They share work from their portfolios, talk about their accomplishments and struggles, reflect on their growth in the Habits of Heart and Mind, and set goals for the short and long term. The advisor facilitates each conference, but the student is truly in the driver’s seat. It’s not strictly a time to show off, although that happens sometimes. The roundtable conference is a time for honest reflection and hard conversations too.

Accomplished Teaching?

December 15, 2010Alaina Adams Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

by Alaina As 2010 comes to a close, many of us are reflecting on our accomplishments – and things we’d like to do better in 2011. In education, teachers are doing this same kind of reflection. What is it, though, that

Why I Teach

December 1, 2010Alaina Adams Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Parent Involvment, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

by Alaina In a recent InterACT blog post, Kelly Kovacic gave a 90 second summary of why she teaches. In solidarity, bloggers in Washington and Arizona are posting blogs to pay tribute to why each of us teaches. Why do

Those Who Can, Make Movies

November 10, 2010Eve Rifkin Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mentoring, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

At a Microsoft conference for educators last summer I got to take home a bunch of pink erasers (I was hoping for something sleeker). The erasers read “make mistakes”. The folks at one of the most successful corporations on the planet know that mistakes lead to great ideas and that they should be made regularly. We need to start rewarding innovation and risk-taking if we want good, or even great teachers. And those are the very things that will be punished if we think that a standardized test taken by a hungry or moody teenager can tell us everything we need to know about good teaching.