As school leaders begin typical summer work, they will need to include recovery strategies that identify effects of the pandemic and address emerging issues. Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn share key areas of focus to help teachers and students thrive in the new normal.
Each educator braving the gauntlet of Covid-era teaching has been stressed and stretched to wits’ end. It’s time to collect the payoff from this strenuous work. Curtis Chandler relates 5 questions teachers asked themselves during the crisis. “If we begin the new school year with solid answers, we’ll be rewarded.”
Dual Language / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Tan Huynh · Published 06/28/2021 · Last modified 07/09/2021
Drawing on his podcast with Dr. Sonia Soltero, language specialist and co-teacher Tan Huynh explains 9 myths that often prevent language learners from receiving the most equitable, rigorous learning experiences and can sever connections to their communities and families.
Sometimes you just wanted to scream, writes assistant principal DeAnna Miller, but staying focused on compassionate care, supportive relationships, and flexibility in the face of misdirection and uncertainty helped her remain centered and expand her leadership skills.
New YA books by Amanda Gorman, Lois Lowry and Margarita Engle are all written in verse, says Katie Caprino, yet each tells a story in a different way. One is a poem to America. Another is memoir. And the third is historical fiction, set in 1990s Cuba, with a singing dog.
In relating to students experiencing trauma, teachers need to consider boundaries – how much we share of ourselves and how we respect our students’ personal spaces. Alex Shevrin Venet offers her insights about equity and trauma in school and ways to respond and build bridges.
Middle school educators at Brooklyn’s Ditmar IS 62 chose to overcome “learning loss” by engaging their sixth, seventh and eighth graders in a long-range project documenting the tragic story of 9/11 through research, oral family and community history and literacy activities.
Patti Drapeau provides the research base and the tools for teachers who truly want to move their students from engagement to empowerment and to upgrade their instruction from differentiated to personalized learning, writes teacher educator Sarah E. Pennington.
Tween and YA books are more dynamic than ever and offer readers avenues for pleasure, reflection, adventure, and emotional engagement, writes Lynne Dorfman. Many choices are also “socially conscious” and deserve a prime spot in class libraries. She has gr4-8 ideas!
The school year is winding down and the prescribed math curriculum is in its final pages. A perfect time for NBCT Kathleen Palmieri to offer her fifth graders activities that use the magic of math to help review concepts and skills and encourage mathematical conversations.
