Consider this profile. “I am a professional educator with an earned baccalaureate from a teacher preparation program at our state university. I am an English major who is an expert in causing children to use language to learn, to clarify … Continue reading
Classroom Observations Open Door of Black Box Teaching
Expand Your First-Hand Knowledge To Grow Your Credibility
First-hand, second-hand or third-hand: how “handy” is your decision making? When you make a decision based upon information, which of the following do you find most credible? First-hand – information gathered by what you personally have heard, seen and experienced. … Continue reading
Board Members: Perch Like A Bird To Learn About Your School
Information is powerful and firsthand gathering of information without bias is essential. Given this as truth, how can a school board member be informed about his school in ways that do not cross the lines between board and administration and … Continue reading
School – A Compact of Good Faith
Watching your child leave the security of your vehicle, walk under the hump of her backpack to the schoolhouse doors, and disappear inside is a leap of faith. I sat watching her form disappear behind the darkened glass of the … Continue reading
Good “Yeah, Buts” Belong In School
It may depend upon who says “Yeah, but…” At the end of the day the consideration of a good “Yeah, but…” often causes us to find and select better options. Other times, what seems like a good “yeah, but” causes … Continue reading
Children Hiding In Plain Sight – No More
“Nothing, really,” is a chronic response to the legendary parent inquiry “What did you do at school today?” Nothing. Really? Seven-plus hours at school time and you did nothing? But, what if this response was true. Can a child actually … Continue reading
Plan For Listening If You Want To Be Heard
Descartes opined that when no one is in the woods to hear a tree fall there is no proof that the tree actually fell. Applied to causing learning, if a teacher is talking/teaching in a classroom and no students are … Continue reading
Relationships Created in September Cause Learning
September in school is all about relationships. Beginning with the moment that a child is told the names of her teachers-to-be and a teacher reads the roster of names assigned to her for instruction, the most essential educational agenda is … Continue reading
Readingless Children
Parents, this is on you! “What book are you reading?”, I asked a middle-school aged child. He said, “I don’t read.” And, returned his attention to his tablet where he was engaged in virtual gaming with friends at a distance. … Continue reading
The Teacher I Wish For You
(This is a letter to our grandchildren. Each of our grandchildren will be in a public school this fall ranging from third grade to tenth grade. Our grandchildren know their Gramps is “old school.” Old as in living in his … Continue reading