And just to be sure you understand, it’s not that teachers don’t want to teach.
It’s not that there aren’t enough teachers certified to teach.
It’s that teachers don’t wish to teach among the horrible conditions that exist in the public
school system in the United States…READ MORE
My first year teaching in a NYC public school I sat down with what would now be considered a “student advisor” for my post-observation session. He asked me how I felt the lesson went. I told him I thought it went pretty well.
He replied, snarkily, “You must think very highly of yourself.”
Well actually, yeah, I did. I was 24 and confident as hell, I still am.I knew I had room for improvement, but I also knew my lesson went pretty well.
Was his comment helpful? Not at all.
I have watched videos, read letters, and listened to testimonies from educators who have quit. Media outlets relentlessly lament the fact that teachers are quitting in droves.
I understand the “why” of quitting, except for the “no chance for advancement” part, as if being a classroom teacher is the bottom of the barrel and you have to work your way up from there. But let’s leave that to another post, shall we?
I hated virtual teaching.
I said it.
I hated it.
You think it would have been easy because I am considered “tech-savvy.” Integrating tech when I teach is second nature for me. So, this should have been easy. Right?
Except, I hated it.
We started our mornings with our 5 minute Waiting Room, then moved on to our Virtual Morning Meeting. We played games on Gimkit, Quizizz, 99Math, and all the new and improved sites that were meant to engage the students in the square boxes. READ MORE
It’s funny how students take things you say every day and turn it into “a thing.”
Every morning I share the Morning Meeting slide with my class. (I tweaked someone else’s template).I always try to connect the topic to the National Day or things that are going on in the world. In order to give my class a chance to talk about what they want to talk about, I would say,”Who has something to share outside of the topic? READ MORE…
I tell you, Amanda Gorman, really inspired me. I haven’t written a poem in years!
We are not Superheroes.
We cannot leap
Tall buildings in a single bound.
But, we can leap over obstacles
placed in the way
Of us “being best”… READ MORE.
There was a post on Twitter about a mother who sent her kid to school knowing they had tested positive for COVID.
As I am wont to do, I dived into the comments.
A constant stream ran through the thread, noone should be upset with the adult. Instead we should blame society, the school, etc…., anyone but this adult who made the choice to send a kid to school with COVID.
Have we gone too far with expecting very little, or nothing at all, from our students and parents?
When I learned how to create a Bitmoji slide, it was a game-changer for me.
When I learned how to add the slide to Schoology and post as an update, I was over the moon!
Yes, it’s the little things. 😎 READ MORE…
I know DESMOS was made for Math , but I have been using it for my Morning Meeting activities. I try to switch up the things that I post for them to do.
I found this list of “50 Icebreaker Questions for Kids” during my frantic search for ways to break the ice in September.
The question that most recently caught my eye was, “If it was raining meatballs, would you eat them?”
Their responses made me laugh!
I open my Zoom “door” at 8:40 a.m. every morning. Alexa helps me stay on track. My planning period is at 8 a.m., and sometimes, as you know, we get wrapped up in what we are doing and lose track of time.
Any way, one day as I was immersed in the Bitmoji FB group, and I came across a digital “Waiting Room.”(“Sharing is caring!”).
I was like, this is so cool, I want this for my students. I did what I so often do, I copied it and modified it a little. It had the rules, like “Mute Yourself” , a cool electronic timer, a Bitmoji character, and these really cool colors. READ MORE…
DIARY OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER 