Most teachers get time each day when they are not with students in order to prepare—“prep period”–grading papers, responding to emails, researching for coming lessons, using the copy machine, developing PowerPoint slides, writing reports and evaluations for students with IEPs, using the bathroom, calling parents, consulting with the school nurse about a student’s medication, conferring […]
The first year of the pandemic, when schools went hybrid and remote, was incredibly difficult—a principal said that he felt like he was juggling on a unicycle in a hurricane; teachers felt the same. Every day blew us into unchartered territory. We re-experienced the daily anxiety of being a first year professional—all new, all untested. We did our best to not crash. Kudos to all who hung in.
What if we used the time usually spent punishing students to instead talk with them and makes plans in ways that help them succeed?
All too often, math teachers sit in silent complicity when it is said that math is exact and linear—humanities are not. Math is about answers that are right and wrong—humanities are not. If math teachers don’t interrupt the status quo, who will? Consider sharing this narrative from an alternate universe:
Despite the boredom and enforced pass-fail monomania of schools, I still love being in them. I see when students experience, despite all the barriers, the moments of joy for having their minds opened and their neurons firing in unexpected patterns and, in those moments, transcendence.
There is never one thing that defines a challenging student, never one cause, never one life event, never one disability. If it were one thing, the solutions would be simple. One of my own teachers confronted me with this important and demanding advice: “Keep the complexity as long as you can.”
This is an exhortation, a plea, a pat on the back and a push up the hill. It is meant to inspire and unsettle, and to help you find your passion and determination. It comes as a request and a challenge: Don’t plan to go into class and tell your students, “This is the boring part.”
I wake up at nights, thinking about the General. I light a candle by my bed and watch the shadows grow thick and fuzzy. The wind rattles my window. I pull myself into a fetal position. My thoughts run like squirrels around a tree. Somehow I might have been able to do more with the General, as much as anyone citizen. I remember to breathe deeply, and to let my thoughts stream through the night.
Atheists don’t have faith in a higher power that they cannot see. This lack of faith marks them as historical relics from three hundred years ago, when handfuls of Europeans began to want proof, proof of everything from how the planets move to how snails find mates.
Women are often pulling for us to say what we feel. When you were a little boy, you had just a few words to say how you felt: mad, glad, sad. But now you probably feel mixtures of feelings–you can be both excited and nervous at the same time, or determined and caring. When the women in your life share their many feelings, you can match them. Better yet: you can share your feelings first.