I just tweeted my thanks to teachers for this years’ Teacher Appreciation Week. Reflecting on the various blogs, tweets, and articles in the news that comment on the importance of teachers and praised teachers for their professionalism and dedication, I found them to be a bit de rigueur. I agree that teachers are essential to improved student learning. No doubt, there are many dedicated and passionate teachers in the workplace. Teachers should be recognized for their professionalism and the work they do. I suggest that acknowledging the work of teachers should be more explicit and action oriented. Volunteer in a classroom! Help a teacher with the tasks that allow them to spend more time with students. Continue reading “How to Thank a Teacher”

Yesterday during our elementary school’s annual “Chalk the Walk” to thank our teachers, my nine year-old son drew this picture near the school entrance. I must admit I was a little nervous when he started drawing the man with the funny teeth. I know he loves his teachers, but he also loves to be the funny guy. When I reminded him that we were there to say thank you and the pictures should be nice, he smiled up at me and said, “Don’t worry all the time, Mom. I am drawing a nice picture. This is to make my teachers smile, not get mad.” Continue reading “Say Thank You — Or Else”

Congratulations to the 2014 Teacher of the Year, Sean McComb, a teacher at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts in Baltimore. McComb and his fellow State Teachers of the Year were recognized by President Obama yesterday in the East Room of the White House. Check out more Teacher of the Year news to hear about the work of McComb and his colleagues #NTOY14 #CCSSO

What is Edcamp?  Here is the promotional web site’s “definition”: “EdCamp sessions are NOT ‘sit and get’ presentations. EdCamps are about discussion and thinking and problem-solving. We build the agenda first thing in the morning and then spend the rest of the day talking, sharing, and learning. Come prepared to participate!” Continue reading “Edcamp”

This middle school student had a good idea that just kept getting better. A Pittsburgh-area teen had a hypothesis for his science fair project: The school district might save some money by reducing its use of printer ink…by changing the font used to create the handouts teachers distribute in class.

His thorough research and well-documented findings led to an expansion of that novel idea and…to headline news at CNN.com: Teen to Government: Change your typeface, save millions.

To get straight to the point:  I am not an avid or successful Twitter user.  The mere thought of saying something that matters in 140 characters makes me want to hide under my desk.

But recently I have become increasingly aware of the potential for Twitter to support my work.  I often find myself deep in discussions of how to make a policy shift work, when to introduce a certain idea to a group of educators, who to engage as stakeholders in a project, or what  aspect of an initiative to tackle first.  These are all important – in fact, they are the nuts and bolts of my job.  And they are complicated, often layered in details, and sometimes take weeks to unpack. Continue reading “To Tweet or Not to Tweet: That Shouldn’t Be a Question”

The internet is replete with blogs that list tips for every possible need.  

“Top 10 ways to clean (___everything you ever owned or wanted to own___).”
“Fifty ways to make your (__any relationship you can think of____) happy. ”
“Suggestions for being a better (___whatever____).”

I find much of this advice to be incredibly useful, while other offerings are pretty silly. I recently wanted to learn how to paint a couch (Don’t ask!) and found a variety of how-to-pointers. One blog caught my attention: — Tip 1: Make sure you want the couch, before painting. Tip 2:  Make sure others in the house want the couch. Tip 3:  Rule out that someone loves the sofa and might be touchy about changing the color, particularly if it is new.  This advice seemed ridiculously obvious, particularly since I am the only person in my household with any interest in furniture. After some searching, I found some lists that offered very practical suggestions about painting chairs and couches. Continue reading “Thirteen Tips”

About twice each year we coordinate with a local school to have artwork by their students turn our office walls into our very own art gallery. This month we hung a new batch of work and invited the students and their parents to come by for an art show so we could thank them for letting us brighten our office with their projects.

The current artwork is from Hoover Elementary School in Iowa City. Art teacher, Cerina Wade, had the 6th graders at Hoover do a project based on artist Faith Ringgold’s Quilt Stories. Ringgold began making story quilts as a way to have her voice heard and in the hopes that her stories would be published as books. Wade liked having her students create their own quilt stories because they involve a number of creative processes. The students first write a very short story with the understanding that they will need to draw a picture depicting the story too. Once the story is written and drawn it is pieced together with a variety of patterned and colorful paper cut to emulate quilting blocks. The final step is to piece the whole work together.

It has been such a treat to read all of these stories accompanied by the drawings of what the story looked like in the young authors’ minds as we walk down our colorful gallery hallway.

You can view this video to see and hear Ringgold discuss the creative process with her most famous quilt story, Tar Beach, which was published as a book.

I just read a recent Hartford Courant article about an op-ed piece written by middle school English teacher, Elizabeth Natale, of West Hartford Connecticut.  Elizabeth stated in her article that she was considering quitting her job because of government education reforms that are “stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help the children.” [i][1]  A week after publishing Elisabeth’s editorial, The Courant discovered her comments had gone viral and were receiving supportive responses from teachers all over the country. The Courant quoted education author, Jonathan Kozol, “There’s no question that Elizabeth Natale has captured the mood among classroom teachers who are caught in the straitjacket of the Common Core and the entire regimen that evaluates teachers on the basis of their students’ scores on virtually meaningless standardized exams.” [2] Continue reading “Worry about Working Conditions”