Workload and pressure work together deviously to demoralize and demotivate even the best teachers. Here’s how it works. First, workload. The default circumstance of teaching in the twenty-first century is that as time goes on, the teacher’s workload increases. Each year there is more of all the things we’re tasked with doing: More email to […]
Thankful for You
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 […]
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 […]