I recently read an online post in which someone described their frustrating year, teaching from behind a screen. They shared that this was a “lost” year for student learning. Yet, I wonder if that’s true. Did our students truly slide
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Supporting First Year Teachers
Next month, thousands of college students across Arizona and the country will proudly move their graduation tassels from right to left, signifying the completion of their degree. This momentous occasion symbolizes their hard work and dedication as they worked toward
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Lessons from Brooks’s Preschool Classroom
Ring, ring. “Hi! This is Mrs. Clark. I am your student’s English teacher.” In my 8th year of teaching, I feel comfortable picking up the phone, calling a student’s home, and saying those words. FINALLY. The act of calling families
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Can We Reimagine Our Profession? I Believe the Answer is Yes!
Little grey boxes with students’ names fill my screen four and a half hours a day. Maybe a few brave souls flip on their cameras for four and a half seconds a day if I am lucky. These little grey
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Four Little Letters: NBCT
Four little letters: NBCT. Four letters that have come to mean so much to me. Four letters recently added to my name: NBCT. Three years ago, I decided to start the National Board Certification process. I knew two NBCTs, and
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Stay Focused: Control the Controllables
The sad, stressful year of 2020 has finally come to an end. What will 2021 bring? Who knows, but how it goes for us will be greatly influenced by our perception and mindset. Will we focus on the positives or
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The Camera Conundrum: On or Off?
“Mrs. Clark! Mrs. Clark!” shouted a student from across the Target parking lot a few weeks ago. I quickly turned around searching for the owner’s voice through a sea of cars and SUVs. A masked girl wearing a sweater, jeans,
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Snapshot of a Silent Classroom
For the first time ever in my career, you can walk into my classroom almost any time these days and it is silent, students sitting facing forward in their desks. District policy dictates that the desks face the front of the
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Rise and Grind? I Think Not…Anymore
Rise and grind. Three little words that have summed my entire life, and I would guess many others as well. As a kid, my parents instilled the idea that we achieved when we worked hard day after day without fail.
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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
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