I know I’m not the first to say this, but something clicked for me tonight. I feel more disconnected than my parents ever were. I feel like I can’t go through a day anymore without hearing about how kids are disconnected from humanity because of their reliance on technology. Continue reading My Work-Life, Technology-Humanity (Im)balance
Fortunately, as a Quaker school, we spend time each week in meeting for worship – this is time spent in shared silence, often spent reflecting on attempting to understand our many experiences. In Quakerism, we also focus on the belief of continuing revelation – the belief that “new truth is revealed to us as we continue our spiritual journeys individually and with one another.” (quoted … Continue reading Teaching for Tomorrow (Literally, tomorrow)
We often hear teacher-led or student-led when describing classrooms, mistakes are an essential characteristic of learning. We don’t simply walk into learning. Even when someone guides us there, we typically have to make a mistake before it sinks in. As a teacher, I know that my students will make mistakes, and lots of them. Therefore, if I am not teaching them how to respond to a mistake, then I am not teaching. Continue reading 5 ways to design a Mistake-Driven classroom
For the last two days, I’ve been reading Paul Solarz’s (that looks weird, I think it should be Solarz’) book Learn Like a Pirate. I am pretty sure he is the best fifth grade teacher ever. This bothers me for two reasons. One is that I am pretty sure I can never reach his skill level. And two, I just left my fifth grade classroom and feel like I need to go back right away to try out all of the things I just learned from his book. Continue reading I’m annoyed and I blame it on Paul Solarz (because he is awesome)!
The phrase, unlock learning, jumped out of the computer and has been stuck in my head for the last few days. As I’ve had a few days to toss around the phrase and the connecting ideas, I started to unlock my own learning. Two strategies/methods for unlocking learning spoke most clearly to me. Continue reading Unlocking learning
We are constantly telling our children, our students, to prepare for the future, to stay focused on their work so that they will have the opportunities they deserve down the road. Yet, we also frequently think and want to say, don’t grow up too fast, cherish childhood before it gets away from you. So which is it, think ahead or be present? Continue reading A Learning Paradox: The battle of being present and preparing for the future
“I feel like genius hour may be more important than any of us think. If we only follow the standard curriculum and don’t explore learn what we want to learn and see who we really are, all we will be are a bunch of standard children and no one wants that.” Continue reading This is what Genius Hour means to students
