While coping strategies can help those facing burnout, teaching careers are more sustainable when educators also slash workload and stress-inducers. Jenny Grant Rankin looks at the burnout pandemic and urges teachers to reduce grading and focus on planning quality lessons.
Katie Caprino offers three ideas for using Zillah Bethell’s YA novel The Shark Caller to engage your middle grades ELA students in social emotional learning. Caprino’s activities build on how the young characters interact as they face the impact of deaths in their families.
Articles / Civics and Current Events / Media Literacy
by MiddleWeb · Published 09/25/2022 · Last modified 07/31/2023
As disinformation proliferates, schools need a better solution than perfunctory media literacy education, say these digital citizenship advocates. When students achieve full “media fluency,” they will not only understand disinformation exists but have the tools to outflank it, write McCusker, Irvan and Driscoll.
In The Power of Teaching Vulnerably David Rockower explains how personal, relational, and dialogic vulnerability can help educators build healthy classroom dialogue. Amy Estersohn would have liked more guidance for teachers facing job loss if they discuss sensitive topics.
Literacy consultant Anne Anderson recommends fellow literacy teachers and coaches keep Dan Feigelson’s Radical Listening near at hand. Implementing the book’s detailed guidelines for active listening during reading and writing conferences will benefit all of your learners.
Geraldine Woods offers strategies for teachers to design and implement a self-contained independent study program or to incorporate principles of independent study into an existing unit or class. Sarah Cooper finds the book’s efficacy lies in its wide, practical application.
Laurie Lichtenstein’s travels to Holocaust sites this summer “had an indescribable emotional impact.” And now, “within this new consciousness resides a deeper understanding of history and an enthusiasm that I hope is infectious as I re-enter my classroom this school year.”
Mental health counselor Emily Kircher-Morris provides parents of twice-exceptional children with keys to help their neurodivergent gifted kids develop lifelong skills with a focus on affirmation and self-acceptance. Amy Estersohn finds the book clear and easy to browse.
A new school year can be filled with excitement – and stress. 5th grade teacher Kathie Palmieri suggests you SOAR into fall as you plan your structure and organization, assess your classroom, review and reset so you and your students can take flight in a welcoming environment.
Providing consistent opportunities for students to learn about and practice social emotional skills in middle school advisory can aid in their behavioral and academic growth. Teacher Kasey Short suggests 14 read-aloud picture books with questions that can support that growth.
