Tag : “ESL”

African American Influence on U.S. Government

February 23, 2018Yolanda Wheelington Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

African American Influence on U.S. Government As February winds down, let’s remember that the celebration of African American influence does not have to end. In honor of this, we will take a look at some of the ways that

Holiday Tears and Cheers with English Language Learners

December 23, 2017Amethyst Hinton Sainz Life in the Classroom, Love, Social Issues

There are many moments when I really wish my Spanish was better, and yesterday was one of those moments. It was the last day of the semester, and my introduction level English Language Development class (grade 7 and 8) was

photo credit: Chris Kealy (Day)Dream Catcher via photopin (license)

“The Dream Catcher” or The Girl Who Championed Self Doubt

October 23, 2017Yolanda Wheelington Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Love, Mathematics, Mentoring, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized

I’m not sure if she was solving multiplication problems with the Checkerboard or working in Read Naturally when I called her over. I noticed she took a deep breath and had that faraway look in her eyes, but she shook

Example of an active and prepared Montessori classroom.

Organized Chaos aka The Prepared Environment

September 6, 2017Yolanda Wheelington Assessment, Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Social Issues

Am I ready? Before students enter the class from the first day of school to the last, it is the goal of most teachers to have the classroom ready and prepared to receive them. In addition to being functional,

The Slippery Slope of Teacher Certification

April 26, 2017Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development

I swore I would never teach junior high. Junior high, two swirling years of what, as a student, I experienced as daily hell. I owe all my patient and forgiving junior high teachers a debt of gratitude. By the time

When Executive Orders Get Personal

February 22, 2017Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

Yesterday as I drove home from work. NPR reported on the new executive orders expanding the groups prioritized for immigration enforcement– in effect, increasing the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants. But I didn’t hear much of the story. After

Reality Check for English Language Learners

December 8, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Uncategorized

Snippets of surreptitious conversational Spanish dart around the classroom amid scattered outbursts of giggles. I review the color-coded highlighting of sentence parts in our newest sentence formula involving superlative adjectives, pointing to the laminated neon cards magneted to the

Back to la Escuela #3: Spanish for English?

September 29, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Literacy, Social Issues

In my previous two “back to schools” blogs, I focused on bringing back librarians and basic supplies such as tissue. I struggled more for the third topic, because the obvious choice seemed to be to bring back teachers! Recently the