Creating a Reading Culture (Even When You’re Low on Time and Funds)
"Why read when you can watch the movie?" In my eight years as an educator, no other sentiment has been quite so crushing to hear from children.
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Teaching the Real Purpose of Writing
In English classes, which require students to sit and read or write for extended periods of time, it can be challenging to get them to want to do their work.
Lessons from High School Musicals
Musicals form an important part of the arts, serving as powerful resources for student learning, engagement, and motivation.
Empathy: Turning the Forgotten into the Benchmark
Most people tend to assume that my students are capable of less-than-stellar academic performances because they have complicated lives outside school.
Teacher Presence: Invaluable or Overrated?
When you have a teacher who has presence, students are impacted in ways that positively affect the class. But what exactly is teacher presence?
Movement in the Classroom
After teaching at an alternative middle school for the past 4 years, the one thing I constantly hear from new students is: “We can move around in your room and not get in trouble?
“But I’m just not a good writer”
As soon as I utter the words “writing assignment,” a look of panic appears on my students’ faces. Their hands shoot up like rockets and the questions immediately start.
Better Serving Introverts in the Classroom
As curriculums move away from an emphasis on content to skills, the time is right to use that move as an opportunity to better serve introverts in school.
The STEM Effect
Certain buzz words and topics come and go in the arena of education. Currently, the word to know is STEM, the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math.
Little School, Big Heart
It began on a lovely spring afternoon in 2015, when a Grade 7 student came up to me during recess: Student: “Do you know Rick Mercer?” Me: “Yup.” Student: “Do you know about ...