Happy Summer! As this is my first one at home in handful of years, I spent the beginning of it on something of a self-imposed hiatus, reading and writing and hanging out with my girls. I’ve also spent some time thinking more about this space and what I would like to do with it for the next few months. Summertime has always meant more time for the things that I love most, including writing. This summer, I…
It’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed in this field that we’ve chosen. There is tremendous work to be done, and whether we’re standing in front of a classroom or leading a professional development initiative, the fact remains: it’s difficult to define all that must be accomplished, let alone find the resources to pull it off. But some people manage to do exactly that, and sometimes, the solutions are incredibly simple. When Niagara Academy took the…
Matt Meader has been a fellow of our regional Deep Curriculum Alignment project for some time now, and my first acquaintance with him was through this initiative. Today, I had the opportunity to hang out with him in-district, where I was asked to meet with his high school ELA department to discuss differentiated instruction. Naturally, this led to a conversation about web 2.0 tools, student engagement, and defining authentic purposes for our kids….and ourselves. Take…
Last night, we hosted a long-overdue barbeque, and when my friend Monika called to ask if she could bring a guest along, of course I said she was more than welcome to. I’m so glad that I did! While the girls played basketball and my husband played chef, I got to hang out with this woman, who just happens to be a coordinator of the National Writing Project. Most recently, she helped to plan and organize their…
I spent today exploring the practice of literature circles with a group of English Language Arts teachers from across our region. It’s always interesting when public and nonpublic school teachers come together to collaborate around any one best practice, but the disparity between these two factions of our education system with regard to resources is fairly outrageous. A good amount of time was spent discussing the beauty of the classroom library and the grief that some teachers feel…
I remember my early assumptions about differentiated instruction. I remember thinking, like many do, that differentiation would require the careful design of three separate approaches for each day’s learning. I remember worrying about how I would ever accomplish such a thing. I worried that my kids would fall through the cracks. I remember not wanting to try. I’m sure my former building principal remembers this well, too. One of the greatest discoveries that I made…
Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain, and gathering them about him, he taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor. “Blessed are the hungry. “Blessed are those who mourn. “Blessed are the oppressed. . . ” Then Simon Peter said, “Do we have to write this down?” And Andrew said, “Are we supposed to know this?” And James said, “I don’t have papyrus with me.” And Philip said, “Will we have a test…
Thank you to Andrea Hernandez and her fabulous students for a very special morning. Laura really enjoyed her Skype session and is already hitting me up for a webcam. Fortunately, I am in the midst of purchasing a new laptop, and the model that I have in mind has one built in. I foresee fun days ahead. Roger’s comment on yesterday’s post makes me smile. It’s always wonderful to receive this sort of feedback from…
It’s always nice to have a week off, and my kids are just as excited as anyone might be about the possibility of sleeping late, eating cereal in front of morning cartoons, and fighting each other for computer time. Truth be told, I’m excited about all of these possibilities as well, but my “break” will come to an end tomorrow morning. I love working when schools are out of session. In my profession, this means…
So, let’s just say a group of teenage girls lures an unsuspecting victim to a gathering wherein she is rapidly turned-upon and beaten unconscious in retaliation for some unscrupulous remarks she supposedly made on her MySpace page. Let’s also say that the girls perpetrating this crime intentionally video-taped it, with the intention of broadcasting it on YouTube. Would it make sense, in your opinion, to attribute this crime to this existence of MySpace and YouTube? I think…