Classroom Perspectives

School is a part of every child’s life. During their academic years, students deal with so many different facets of growth and development—physical, cognitive, emotional, and social. Having a chronic illness on top of the regular day-to-day stressors of being a student can be an enormous burden and challenge.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that rules without relationships lead to rebellion. Yet today, relationships with students seem to be feared instead of embraced. Over the years, quite by accident, I have discovered that this precept from days gone by is critical to classroom rules and to learning itself. Relationships are an essential part of learning, especially relationships between teachers and students.

Often, we forget our students come to class each day with a lot more on their minds than academics. Despite this, my students willingly express gratitude each morning.

This past year, in a small Midwest community, we lost a student to a drug overdose. We have lost many more to drug addiction, and although we haven’t attended their funerals, they are no longer the students we once knew, while some are unrecognizable.

For teachers, time is a precious commodity. That’s why I believe we need to incorporate Google Drive into our everyday teaching standards.

Many substitute teachers like me can teach a different grade every single day, from K–12. It can be challenging, to say the least.

IBL has a broad definition and varied implementation. It is generally characterized by a student-centered learning experience, with little to no lecturing.

I recently observed a high school science lesson that left me feeling like I had just swished some super-minty Listerine. I was refreshed. I was inspired…so much so, in fact, that I built and entire upcoming PD session around my takeaway from this lesson. I will return to this in just a moment.