I recently watched “Whatever It Takes” as part of an event sponsored by an education advocacy organization here in law school. (Note: this documentary has no connection with the Paul Tough book of the same name on the Harlem Children’s Zone.) The 2007 documentary examines the progress of the Bronx Center for Science & Mathematics…
read more »Despite the lack of a new post in over a month, please know that this blog is still alive and well. I’m no longer a classroom teacher, so I won’t be able to provide up-to-date anecdotes. But know this: I will continue to use this space to comment on issues in education, for whatever it’s…
read more »The first-year science teacher on my team is having a really difficult time, just as I was this time last year. I stopped by her classroom after-school today to try and offer some suggestions and support. Sadly, for every idea I gave her about behavior management, she provided two reasons as to why that idea…
read more »My personal mission this year, in accord with TFA’s new “Transformational Teaching” approach, is to get my 8th graders into excellent high schools. I’ve started by asking parents and students about their high school plans. One of my students, Aubrey, is quiet in class other than occasionally raising her hand to answer a question. I…
read more »To my extreme relief, the first week of school is over. Two of my classes are going really well. And when I say really well, I mean REALLY really well: every child is meeting or exceeding both my behavior and academic expectations. The class is completely silent while I’m talking, kids are all seated and…
read more »I received an email recently that looked a lot like spam. No subject line; a string of numbers followed by “@qq.com” as the sender’s address; poor sub-par writing mechanics. But thank goodness I looked more carefully–I was looking at an email from one of the students I worked with in China!: Im Polly,I hope that…
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I was sitting inside of my reading room/woman cave reading listening to the dull roar of the highway when my reading was disturbed by children talking and breaking glass outside. I put down my book and proceeded to look out of the window and observe what was going on. I continued to hear the children…
read more »The end of the school year came with great excitement but little meaning. The key points of the short version are 1) my kids did OK on standardized testing but not stellar; 2) the administration was fired, again; 3) I never said goodbye to any of the kids because they went to their mid-week graduation…
read more »This is part 2 in a series on my experience teaching in China this summer. Part 1 is here. Today’s theme: exchanges. ***** As I was boarding my flight out of mainland China, I picked up a copy of China Daily, the local English newspaper. Until then, I had missed any chance of reading the…
read more »I met it on day one of Institute, when I was as eager as I’d ever be to tackle the achievement gap, even though I had no idea how I might do so. It stood by my side, always loyal, even during the hardest of times, times when I felt like giving up (there were…
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