Many teachers find a kindred group of colleagues in their first year of teaching who become career-long personal and professional friends. This group helps to define a teacher’s school culture. When your peer group has retired or left the school, a teacher faces an essential career question. Continue reading
My Yesteryear Peers Are Gone. What Do I Do Now?
The Full Monty
The extras a teacher brings to the daily life of a child make school more than class time and create a full education for a child’s life time. Continue reading
All Politics Are “Just Down The Street”
Central truths cannot be forgotten. If all politics are local, then “Sally down-the-street” is a school board’s measure of the effects of their decisions. Continue reading
Remote Education: Conditional Not Optional
State governments made exceptions to public education regulations due to health emergency crises. Remote education was an allowable option. In the absence of a health emergency, remote education should be conditional not optional. Continue reading
Aaron Burr and Zooming Into the Room Where It Happens
Pandemic government at the local level has magnified and optimized public access to “the room where it happens”. Aaron Burr would be jealous. Continue reading
Load-bearing Learning
What children learn in 4K-3 matters. Their learning must create load-bearing skills and capacities that will support additional and expanded learning in grades 4-12 and life. Give new thinking to what your teach our youngest learners. Continue reading
Leave No Child Unconnected
Pandemic education made Internet connectivity an essential for children learning at home and remotely, teachers teaching from home, and all parents working from home. High speed Internet for every community and every home should be a priority in a new federal plan for the national infrastructure. Continue reading
Olly Olly Oxen Free
This spring a school needs to conduct a full battery of curricula assessments for each child enrolled. Teachers, parents, and children need to know the status of child learning to plan appropriately for the 21-22 school year. Continue reading
School Board Work Is A Wonderful Responsibility
School boardsmanship requires members to act with integrity and respect, be informed about and by their schools, represent children and their education, and be legislators not executives. It is a wonderful responsibility. Continue reading
What We Learned – The School We Miss Did Many Things Very Well
Every national crisis includes a discussion of public education. In some way, schooling always is involved. As we evolve through the pandemic, our discussion points to attributes of public education we miss because we value them even more in their absence. Continue reading