This time last year I was standing at the front of the school checking the college basketball scores from the previous night. As I was scrolling, I received a breaking news alert to my phone. I am not a big consumer of news, so the algorithm usually only pushes the stories it really thinks I…
Black History Month is winding down. As I have mentioned before, I don’t typically adjust my curriculum for February as I teach Black history year-round. However, my school celebrates the month by having students across all grade levels choose a person or an event to learn more about during their passing periods. Predictably, many of…
One of my fondest childhood memories is switching between my Sega Genesis games. I imagine that this would be the same for many other people. The consoles you had this experience with may vary. Maybe you had this experience with an Atari 2600 or an N64. However, the idea of choosing between your library of…
The internet is full of threats, hackers, spyware, viruses, phishing, and even predators. Virtually everyone has fallen victim to the first three and unfortunately every day there is a new story about someone falling victim to the last one, too. This makes sense as most of these issues are virtually never explicitly taught. I, myself,…
This week, we had several inches of snow. My school, along with many others around the country, opted out of in-person school. The weather dictated that it was best to avoid having students, families, and staff traveling on the roads. There is nothing new about this. Snow days are as old as public schools themselves….
When I was in middle and high school, I earned bad grades. They were bad enough for me to be kicked out of my magnet high school. They did let me back in, and eventually, I got it together. However even in those down years there was one bright spot on my report card… history….
Stop me if you have heard this before: Some people are upset by Black History Month. This time it’s in Utah. Parents of some students that attend Maria Montessori Academy in North Ogden wanted to keep their kids from participating in Black History Month curriculum and activities. That part unfortunately isn’t uncommon and isn’t news….
2020 revealed large gaps in our society. And as we have already covered on this blog, one of those needs was for comprehensive social studies and civics education. I’m clearly not the only one who thought that as bills requiring schools to teach civics are making their way through multiple statehouses around the country right…
Don’t send your kids to one. That’s how school choice works …
COVID-19 has dragged school districts kicking and screaming into the digital age. Forcing schools online is not a good thing but forcing them to learn new tricks and address the digital divide is. With that being said, there are were bound to be obvious growing pains with such massive changes. Many speculated that the forced…