After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
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Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Tag: Responsive Classroom
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I’ve been privileged to teach in a school that embraced the tenets of Responsive Classroom. If you’ve never been exposed to this program, explore this link. There is a calm sense of purposefulness in Responsive Classroom schools; it begins right from the first days of school when students are explicitly taught expectations for their own…
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How do you define your classroom space? I like to call mine collaborative classroom design. As a follower of Responsive Classroom, I know how important it is for students to feel ownership and have a voice in designing the space we share. When I walk into my classroom space for the first time after a summer break, I…
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I recently read this post from Germantown Avenue Parents’ blog. Those behavior management tools – like the mentioned stoplight? Do they really help kids get behaviors on track? In my school, we are required to hang a pocket chart. Each child has an assigned number and flips cards through a series of colors – green…
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There is a pall hanging over us. We want answers to the unanswerable. We need to put our anger and sadness somewhere, but there is no place. Tomorrow is a Monday that will be unlike any other. Tomorrow I need to try to reassure my 8-year-olds. Many of them will have watched too many reports…
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Responsive Classroom provided some review PD for our school this past week. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like about the RC approach, and surely I picked up some great clarifications and refreshers. In fact much of the presentation affirmed what I know in my heart to be true about education and…
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I subscribe to Responsive Classroom’s newsletters and blogs. They usually help to ground me, help me to see and understand my students better. This week’s entry was about Questioning Assumptions. And as a teacher, I know there are too many times when I’ve jumped to a conclusion about a student’s behavior or motivation. And then been…
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It came to me as a sleep-filled message. One of my current charges is a real behavioral headache. This child has witnessed more trauma than anyone should, let alone anyone who is just 9 years old. And, as you might expect, the child has many behavioral tics that get in the way of his —…
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There is no magic bullet for creating partnerships between home and family. How I wish there was! However, once in a while I hear another teacher’s idea and borrow it to suit my own purpose. Isn’t that something we all do? In this case I borrowed my colleague Kim Bonfilio’s idea of seeking parent input…
After An Educator's Journey 