Like many of my students, I too use digital devices in my daily personal life, but the enormous piles of notes and paper combined with the constant fighting with the students to put their gadgets away drove me to reevaluate how I could use those very gadgets to my advantage.

Teaching is a great responsibility. I teach English and believe that the ability to communicate, at a personal and societal level, is what builds strong communities and ensures ownership over one’s future. Thus, it’s important that we teachers spend a lot of time on our craft—deliberating the best ways to teach and make lessons fun, interactive, and relatable to students. Professional development thrives on discipline pedagogy and school departments meet to align goals and assignments and to discuss data assessment.

After teaching high school reading intervention courses for many years, I know that starting with a novel is a mistake—it’s too long. Instead, I use urban legends.

The first six weeks of a new school year are essential. In middle school classrooms, those weeks are not just a warm-up. Rather, they are the foundation on which the entire school year is built.

I see sleepy kids every day in my 8th grade English class. Their heads are drooping. Their eyes are barely open. Their energy is low.

Waynesboro Education Farm is an ambitious project. It sits on 1.5 acres of land adjacent to Berkeley Glenn Elementary school in the city of Waynesboro, VA.

On paper, the students I was teaching had a solid grasp of grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Yet, when it came to speaking, they froze.

I am Teacher. I can wear fifteen different hats on my head and not one of them from the same shop.

Most people tend to assume that my students are capable of less-than-stellar academic performances because they have complicated lives outside school.