Over the course of my career, I have maintained an obsessive focus on teaching and learning. My office at home is filled with books and magazines in which I have taken copious notes. I maintain notebooks (both pencil and paper notebooks and multiple digital notebooks) with thoughts and about how “something” can become a lesson Read More
Twitter is a method of quickly publishing text, pictures, and video to the Internet. Many educators avoid using Twitter and other social media because of high-profile embarrassments that are reported on a regular basis. Those embarrassments are largely the result of the ease with which one can post information to the Internet. It takes only Read More
Teachers complain. They complain a lot. No, really. You can’t imagine the things teachers say about students, colleagues, administrators, parents, and everyone else. After more than three decades of hearing it, I may nod, but it is like white noise to me; with one exception. When I hear, “I taught it, but they didn’t learn Read More
Yes, teachers are doing things differently now than they did previously. We are understanding better how humans learn and that is leading us to make better decisions about what w do with students. Some adults are uncomfortable with what we do today, but they need to realize we are preparing students for their future, not Read More
About 15 years ago, there was a book and article entitled Change or Die that was widely popular and that was discussed at every conference and meeting we attended for a season or two. The thesis of the book and article was simple: When faced with the choice of changing one’s behavior or dying, many humans Read More
I heard this week of the passing of one more of the teachers who taught in my junior high school. When I was a student, George taught industrial arts. In seventh grade the curriculum was mechanical drawing and woodshop and in 8th grade it was ceramics and metal shop. He was one of three full-time Read More
I learned this morning of the passing of one of my middle school (but we called it junior high school back then) teacher who later became a colleague and mentor. He brought me in to the work I do now and advanced my career and work in ways I won’t forget. One of the projects Read More
Social justice education is an idea that has captured the attention of teachers, scholars, leaders, and other in recent years. I have tried to find just what it means for me for some time. For context, I am a white, heterosexual male with grey hair; while I was raised in a weakly-practicing Protestant family, I Read More
With the arrival of digital electronic computers and the knowledge age late in the 20th century, the stability and predictability of necessary literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge evaporated. These technologies evolve much more rapidly than other information technologies, and this necessitates information skills to be updated constantly and for new skills to be learned Read More
Teaching is a fascinating profession; it comprises individuals who were all successful as students. Implicit in our concept of teaching is replicating for our students what proved successful for us. The reality, however, is that most of our students are not on the same path we are on (there are exceptions to this especially in Read More