Before your first staff meeting comes and starts the school year stress, take five minutes to shoot from the gut and get your head and heart straightened out with this simple exercise. You won’t get any copies made or a class blog set up or a curriculum mapped or whatever other urgent tasks assail you while you’re […]
Updates (and Goodbye, Sort of) to the Teaching the Core Blog
Hi! Welcome back to Teaching the Core. Er, the Dave Stuart Jr. blog, I mean. I’ve been productive during my July sabbatical, and I’d like to explain what I’ve done and why I’ve done it. But, first, here’s the awesome news: Three posts per week in August! (Colloquially referred to as “The Blitz” within the Stuart household) For the […]
Why We Teach
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the first day of my teaching career, I met a group of sixth graders who would give me my first master class on teaching. Caleb was one of those students: huge smile, artistic genius, winsome character. Caleb, his peers, and I were all new that year to Woodlawn Middle School in Baltimore, MD. What you have to realize […]
The Mental Reset Button: Hit It
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t some point last school year, you began a list called “Things I’ll Tackle Once School is Done.” Some of you said you’d revamp your curriculum or read that one PD book you’ve been hearing about or begin studying for that new course you’re teaching next year or paint your classroom walls or reorganize your […]
$11,195 through Donors Choose: A Reflection on Generosity
During this past school year, a group of mostly strangers donated $4,197 worth of books to my classroom library (here’s the list). I didn’t earn a grant for this; I have no wealthy benefactors; and I didn’t ask for donations from readers of this blog or its social networks. No — I just asked for books on […]
