My dear colleague, How could we have guessed, one year ago today, what was ahead of us professionally and personally? The hardship, the uncertainty, the fearfulness, the frustration, the angst, the triumphs and failures. None of us knew. This Thanksgiving morning, I’m thinking about you — about what it’s been like to travel through a […]
Archives for November 2020
Things That Help: Weekly Wrap-Up Video for Parents
Recently, friend of the blog “Continuing Ed” McCarthy reached out to me with an example of his end-of-the-week wrap-up video to parents. This isn’t something I’ve done for my students’ families but, gosh, does it seem like a simple method for radically increasing teacher clarity, teacher credibility, and the home-school partnership. Let’s take a look […]
How to Teach and Reinforce Norms for the Synchronous Remote Classroom: Here’s the Simple Approach I Used
Recently, my school switched from in-person to remote learning, and I thought it might be useful to share how I approached establishing norms for our online “classroom.” (Zoomroom?) Normally I’d write this kind of thing down, but time is tight these days, and a video is better than nothing. (That’s also why I’m hosting a […]
How I Handled Misbehaviors on the First Day of Zoom Classroom
On the first day of synchronous learning at my school, I had a pair of students doing something I hadn’t seen before while the class was completing a writing warm-up. They were taking turns flashing their videos on and off, making funny faces each time they’d appear. I could tell they were getting a real […]
Things That Help: “Good Times”
While I don’t necessarily recommend the book,* Ben Courson’s Flirting with Darkness: Building Hope in the Face of Depression did give me a concept that’s been helpful in the days since I read it one night. It’s this habit amongst elite military groups of responding to adverse turns in events with the phrase, “Good times.” […]