It’s interesting how many teachers email me about a post I wrote six years ago, Animal Farm Lessons. People can read it at HuffPost or in my book Uncommon Core, so it’s easy to find it if they are looking for lesson plans for Animal Farm. Today, I spent some time answering these questions: 1.Continue reading “Questions about my Animal Farm Social Experiment”
Category Archives: True Reformation
The Problem with Choice
I know too many people who are not educators (and some who are) that are in favor of the choice movement in education. The biggest reason people want choice is to improve the education for their own children and then create competition so that other schools will be forced to improve or shut down. Unfortunately,Continue reading “The Problem with Choice”
The Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: October 2016
How do we better engender a healthy, happy, and productive school environment where both teachers and students can flourish? In Martin E.P. Seligman’s Flourish (published April 5, 2011 with Simon and Schuster), he writes about the five elements people need in order to flourish. It goes beyond trying to find happiness: “Flourishing rests on five pillars, eachContinue reading “The Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: October 2016”
The Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: September 2016
How can we maximize the value of art and music in education and how can it be blended with more traditional subjects (math, science, history, etc.)? I teach at a community college, and a professor there created an art therapy club for professors, adjunct, and staff. Nine people attended the first session where they coloredContinue reading “The Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: September 2016”
Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: August 2016
How do you help students accept and work well with people of different beliefs, cultures, languages, socio-economic statuses, education backgrounds, and learning styles? Acceptance and respect are best taught through example. As a teacher, I set the mood, tone, and pace of the classroom. If I mistreat any student in my classroom, it will giveContinue reading “Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: August 2016”
Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: June 2016
How do we inspire the best and the brightest to become educators? We have to make the profession a respectable position. Right now, American teachers are scapegoats for everything wrong with our society. This is not true in other countries. How do we bring respect to the profession? This multiple step process must happen simultaneouslyContinue reading “Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: June 2016”
Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: March 2016
What are the best examples you have seen of teachers closing the gender gap in education? I wrestled with this question for a few weeks because I thought the question implied that the educational gender gap meant that male students have the upper hand. However, I think the current state of education favors female students.Continue reading “Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: March 2016”
Joshua Katz’s TEDx Talk: Toxic Culture of Education
Joshua Katz describes perfectly the plight of American education, the damage it does to our lower achieving students, and the super villains behind it all. “We need to pay attention to our students and who they are. . . . How can we help them be better students? . . . How can we helpContinue reading “Joshua Katz’s TEDx Talk: Toxic Culture of Education”
The Philanthropic Experience: A Student’s Perspective
One of my current college composition student wrote a personal narrative essay that beautifully illustrates one of my ideas to reform education ( ). This is what I proposed in that post: The Philanthropic Experience For those students who don’t want to continue their formal education but aren’t ready to go out into the worldContinue reading “The Philanthropic Experience: A Student’s Perspective”
Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: February
What are the top ten ways that administrators can help new teachers avoid burning out? Mentors: New teachers need to pair up with master teachers so that they have mentors they can turn to for help. There are so many problems and issues new teachers face their first years of teaching that it is difficultContinue reading “Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: February”
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