Classroom Perspectives

When I first created the reading test, it was supposed to simply track student progress. But I quickly discovered that sharing the results of my personal tracking system with students has completely changed their engagement and motivation levels.

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.

I have gleaned three wise teachings from King Lear's fool and each one informs my practice in the classroom more and more each day.

The Spread the Net Student Challenge is a friendly competition between Canadian schools to raise funds for malaria-preventing bed nets for families in Africa.

Two years ago, my principal rolled an iPad cart into my classroom. I'd been challenged to design and implement a 1:1 iPad program that would enhance the highly structured academic curriculum already in place. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I set out on this technology adventure, but I quickly realized that trail-blazing wasn't all glitter and rainbows.

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.