Students often display a morbid curiosity that I feel I cannot ignore, but can I lean into it? Can I use this fascination in a way that engages students, but also humanizes them?

As an educator in Canada, whose homeland has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples long before me, I have the opportunity and responsibility to teach this history to my students.

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.

“May it please the court.” For the past 13 years, I’ve heard middle and high school students utter these words in a simulated moot court competition.

In my classes I use a team-structured, project-based approach to teach history and civics. It’s an approach that covers nearly all the bases.

You see, here’s the thing that some of us – teachers and parents alike – don’t really take time to stop and think about: kids’ feelings have value too. And they all have their own needs and wants at any given time.

Utilizing trauma-informed practices can help create a welcoming and inclusive environment that allows students to feel comfortable and valued.

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.

As an educator, my classroom isn’t just a space for reciting facts and figures. It’s a dynamic environment where learning extends far beyond the curriculum.