After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
recent posts
about
Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Author: amybisson
-
Linda Richman was right. Throw out an open question and get the talk going. In our fourth grade classroom we’ve taken accountable talk to another level. We use many of the prompts that programs like Making Meaning explicitly teach, so outside of insisting on speaking patterns that first use and then play off of these stems,…
-
We were asked that very question during a faculty meeting presentation yesterday. Oh there are layers and layers of accountability in the education world in which we live: administrators, students, parents. Yes, we are all accountable to them. Family members, significant others? Those people too. My answer? I am accountable to me. I am accountable to me…
-
We are at that time of the year when high stakes test prep is kicked into gear. I try to keep the required and inevitable test prep low-key and casual, if that’s even possible, because, for goodness sake — the kids are 10! Here in my urban classroom, however, the tension and stress can be seen…
-
We’ve been working with nonfiction texts this winter, and so I was doing my due diligence on better ways to teach students how to read and comprehend these texts. For an experienced reader, navigating nonfiction is not a daunting task, but imagine for a moment what it must be like to see all the busyness that makes…
-
I was drawn to this article in the New York Times this morning: Why You Hate Work. Now, there is no way I can say I “hate” the work that I do. There is something uniquely satisfying about teaching even the smallest of skills or ideas to a child. Spiritually, teaching is an incredible opportunity…
-
Remember when then-candidate Clinton – Bill, not Hillary – had a sign probably written by James Carville that read “It’s The Economy, Stupid”? Well, to paraphrase in this age of educators-can-do-nothing-right, I’d like to say that as anyone who scratches below the surface of education knows, it’s the poverty, stupid. The Alternet recently published an…
-
On December 30th, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan posed a question to the Twitter-verse: What if every district committed both to identifying what made their 5 best schools successful & providing those opps to all their students? I’m not sure Mr. Duncan was prepared for the response he received from U.S. educators. But then,…
-
I got a new student a week ago. One with many behavioral and social and emotional issues. To be honest, reading his IEP gave me a headache. And a heartache. He was placed in my classroom because there was a rumor that he had an IEP, and I am one of two inclusion classrooms at our…
-
I often hear what I hope are compliments when visitors walk into my classroom, and I am able to attend to this new intermission in our day’s work. It wasn’t always this way of course. Kids are kids. Their natural inclination is that the moment teacher is distracted it will seem like a golden opportunity to do “something else”. So,…
-
So when do you know it is time to quit? I still equivocate about whether this academic year should be my last or not. Right now I’m leaning toward all done. We shall see what those who keep the records say. Sometimes what you think to be true, just is wishful thinking. At one point…
After An Educator's Journey 