Teaching the standards takes time; so does building trust. “So are you calling us stupid?!” a middle school student asked me two months into my first year of teaching. Her eyes bore straight through to my heart. It was 9:15 a.m. on a Monday during my first year of teaching in a small rural schoolContinue reading ““So are you calling us stupid?!””
Monthly Archives: October 2017
My Seventh-Graders Told Me This: Everything’s Gonna Be Okay
The future of the country is in good — albeit small — hands. Just when you think the country is spiraling out of control due to natural disasters, political upheaval, and lone wolf violence, you read some words written by twelve- and thirteen-year-olds and you realize that kids will carry us through. In short,Continue reading “My Seventh-Graders Told Me This: Everything’s Gonna Be Okay”
Six Things I’ve Learned So Far from Using Instagram in My ELA Classes
#workinprogress #experiment #askmeagaininMay I attended an ed-tech conference over the summer. One of the sessions, Social Media in the Classroom, was taught by a middle school teacher from another district in my area who admins a private Instagram account for her ELA classes. The idea intrigued me. I already knew Instagram was fun, based onContinue reading “Six Things I’ve Learned So Far from Using Instagram in My ELA Classes”