Earlier this month, Andrew Pillow shared his teacher Christmas list, so let’s keep that ball rolling. This school year, I made the transition (some say to the dark side) from teacher to administrator. If you believe it gets easier as you climb the professional ladder, you would be mistaken. The workload increases and you constantly…
Regardless of your profession, mentorship can be powerful. We need long term teacher mentoring in education. This is one way to improve the quality of educators in the profession. If a teacher follows the traditional track as an educator, the teacher concludes the college experience with student teaching. It’s like an internship. It is supposed…
One of the hardest weeks of the school year is the week before winter break. The turn up is real. Students start acting as if you didn’t spend the first few weeks of the school year forcing them to internalize routines and procedures. It’s like they forgot you reviewed these routines and procedures after fall…
A phrase heard in schools across the country is “college-ready.” The goal is to set students up for success as they pursue post-secondary education. According to a recent survey, there are some majors that college graduates regret earning. A ZipRecruiter survey , of 5,000 participants, revealed the top ten regretted majors. Rounding out the top…
I was in school during the time when we transitioned from referring to the break that ended the first semester from Christmas break to winter break. Winter break is more inclusive. It focuses on the season and not a holiday celebrated by some people. Teachers should keep this thought in mind before putting up a…
When will black people be able to just live their lives? I’m so sick and tired of hearing about people policing black people’s hair, especially children. The most recent incident I heard about is when an eight-year-old student in Jackson, MI was not allowed to have her school picture taken at Jackson’s Paragon Charter Academy…
Fourth-grade teacher, Laura Wooley, was preparing her students for an upcoming social studies test using a McGraw-Hill textbook. During the course of prepping for the test, her students found an issue with the content in the book. On page 148 of the United States Research Companion, it states, “As more farmers grew tobacco, they needed…
Sunday, November 24, 2019 was the Indiana Association of School Principals’ Annual Principal of the Year Banquet. Social media was buzzing with pictures of the event. What caught my attention were three images. There were three poster boards displaying the winners for elementary, middle, and high school principals for 2019…and every winner appeared to be…
I always view holidays as an opportunity to reflect and to incorporate the value of that day into my life moving forward. Today is Thanksgiving; if you choose to observe this day, it should be rooted in gratitude. Gratitude so often gets cast aside when it comes to the professionals that serve students and their…
I know all too well the weight of the invisible tax of being a black educator. There is an assumption that I can better connect with black students and discipline them because I am black. I do have similar experiences to some of my black students, but I do not believe those experiences, or my…