“Sorry, Carly,” she said, looking at me with shame in her eyes. “I had to cut the social studies lesson.” It was a Friday night. A friend of mine, “Ms. Kyles,” who teaches 4th grade, was sharing the stressful week she had. Generally, Ms. Kyles indicated, she had a good
Talk of civics education seems to be everywhere these days. From concerns about students not knowing enough civics to blaming election results on civics education to arguments that more rigorous civics classes won’t solve much. A recent article from NPR, asked what civics education needs to “stick” with students. The
When my nephew was first beginning to talk, one of the adults in the room said a curse word. The group winced. Picking up on this reaction, my nephew proceeded to repeat the word over and over and over. The fact that I couldn’t stop laughing didn’t help. My sister
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”― Albert Einstein Whether or not I consider my day as productive often is directly related to how much I produced. I’ve been writing some exams for my doctoral
As much as I love all my students, when I became a teacher, I quickly learned some of the necessary boundaries of that trust. It’s a “trust, but verify” approach. I want to see evidence that they mean what they say. Once a dog ate a student’s assignment and she
Lately, I’ve been grappling with how scholars, teachers, and policymakers define “citizenship” and, consequently, “citizenship education.” One thing I found was the prevalence of individualized notions of citizenship in curriculum – meaning when students think about acting as a democratic citizen, it is often in terms of the individual’s rights,
One of the joys of teaching is interacting with students who have not quite mastered particular social graces, such as politeness or tact. Early in my teaching career, I had a student tell me individually what she really thought of our class. She did not mean to be insulting –
Unless you have isolated yourself from all forms of media (or human interaction), you have seen the topic of historical memory being discussed, specifically within the context of Confederate monuments. Though I don’t generally shy away from political discussions, I usually keep mum on social media. I would much rather
For my fourth summer, I spent the last six weeks teaching with Kentucky’s Governor’s Scholars Program. I’ve written about my past summers in previous posts. (“Practicing Citizenship,” “Acting Like a Citizen,” “Being C3Minded…”). What makes this program special for a teacher is that it is a highly competitive academic program,
Now that summer is here, the pressures of the school year are alleviated, at least partially. I can finally tackle my to-read pile! Though as a sufferer of tsundoku—a Japanese word meaning I have a problem with buying books that stack up, but not reading them—the stack of books will
