[…]I’m getting at—despite being a 37-year old man. He exudes a 24/7 concern for our wellbeing and comfort, and he’s always trying to help in whatever ways he can. He also may be the most humble man I’ve ever met. And so Khechok has all of our paperwork, all of our passport photos, all the things we need to get our permits wrapped in a nice bow, and he hands them over to the station. Two hours later we discover that what should be a quick 10-minute stamp might end up taking over three hours. On the bright side, I’m […]
[…]to being successful post high school. I am concerned that Study Tables forces rather than teaches.” Commenting on the value of Study Tables for all students one teacher expressed that “Study Tables only benefit those who use them properly. Consequently, good students benefit a lot from Study Tables. Apathetic students realize almost no benefit from Study Tables.” I systematically observed Jessica and Brandon and reflected on their situation and my interactions with them. In addition, I worked with KSTF’s Practitioner Inquiry for the Next Generation (PING) project: a group of educators from across the country who were also raising questions […]
[…]coach, curriculum developer, and supervisor for the other four math and science teachers. I felt comfortable as an instructional coach and curriculum developer but was anxious about my role as an evaluator. What I saw in classrooms was mostly effective teaching. In spite of this, we were not meeting our accountability goal in terms of student success on state exams. Eventually, I was asked to answer a question that is being asked of school leaders with increasing frequency: “How is it that you wrote a predominantly positive performance review for a teacher who is not meeting the required pass rate?” […]
[…]encouragement, and nurture. As many first-year teachers tend to do, I defaulted towards the “For” square. I desperately wanted students to like me and felt the best way to accomplish this was to act as more of a buddy. I had lax rules and control, treating students similar to colleagues. Unsurprisingly, this system had the opposite effect of what I intended. Students did not respect my authority and did not take what I deemed important seriously. These behaviors would cause me to overshoot in the SDW into the punitive square when I would send students into the hall. In reflecting on […]
[…]slides, and goals without scruples. I learned how each of my peers functioned, what their “go-to” strategies were, and how much scaffolding they used. Each of us had a very unique style and strategy. The humbling thing, though, was that most of it was quite effective. In fact, there were lots of lessons I started skeptically, only to find that my peers had efficient or fun solutions to issues I hadn’t even considered. Despite our hard-fought battles over curriculum and instruction, we were all pretty darned good teachers. Using others’ work gave me time to communicate more closely with individual […]
[…]in California, where there are many Spanish speaking immigrants. Rick and Katie teach classes of newcomer students, and Kim has mixed classes comprised of native English speakers, English learners who have been in the U.S. for several years, and newcomers. Many of our students speak Spanish as their primary language, and we interact with parents whose primary language is Spanish. The possibility of communicating with students and parents in their primary language was a major motivation to study Spanish. However, we all felt that studying in a classroom setting didn’t quite work for us. We picked up some vocabulary and […]
[…]to students, connecting with students, being respectful, being patient, and making students feel comfortable and safe), 64% of current teachers (36 of 56) and 72% of former teachers (eight of 11) specifically mentioned something about caring for students. As one current teacher put it, [A good teacher] cares about their students as people and treats them as people. And ideally communicates that care to students in an appropriate and thoughtful daily way . . . it is both really, really crucial, and also not nearly enough on its own. We know too much as a profession about what helps students […]
[…]between different types of accounts. I felt like I could trust the advice of my friend to be forthcoming and sound, even though, of course, no one can guarantee future profits when the stock market is involved. What is a 403(b), anyway? My investment manager friend told me to think about retirement income as a three-legged stool. You’ll get Social Security, your pension (a mandatory contribution from your paycheck, put into an account managed by the state), and any retirement account you set up. But you have to set it up. It’s not the sort of thing that is built-in when […]
[…]a few of our conversations from the second semester so that I could reflect on patterns in her thinking. Throughout the year she had several points where she expressed feeling totally overwhelmed and discouraged. Although it was her second year teaching, she reflected that it felt more challenging than her first year teaching because she felt like there were far too many different initiatives, that it was challenging to learn how to navigate all of the systems in place within our district, and that there was an overarching sense of low morale in our school. She was not able to […]
[…]immediately come to mind. The research talk was held in mid-July; the start of school was six comfortable weeks away, and I had no urgent distractions. I chose to attend the research talk. The topic and tone of the talk—how to collect and analyze data to determine the effects of climate change on populations, delivered by an expert—respected my professional knowledge and interests. Most importantly, though, the talk came at the end of a week-long professional development experience. During the week, some science teacher colleagues and I hung out with the research team in the field. We participated in data […]
