As the youngest of six brothers it's a common theme for everyone in the family to assume I know something that I was too young to experience. "Of course you know the story about the tennis ball in the tail pipe!" But I didn't, because I hadn't been born, and the story had been told so many times before I was old enough to remember and they all assumed I remembered it....
Melissa Pettey is swirling in the rapids of a truly inspirational charter school project and I got to interview her about it yesterday. As usual my notes look like tornado fallout because excitement got the best of me and she could discuss it for days. I’ve said it more than once but I&rs...
At fifteen I accepted an exchange program for the duration of my sophomore high school year to a city outside Osaka, Japan. It was tough going but I still feel the positive effects of such a radical perspective change. Least importantly I felt tall, which hadn’t happened before and hasn’t since. I had light skin and blonde hair in a sea of Asian pigments which gave me marginal...
Julie lived in a small trailer home with her mother, her older brother, and her mother’s boyfriend. (Her father was incarcerated for repeated drug charges.) I was Julie’s special education case manager and teacher for most of her elementary school years. She and her brother often got themselves up and ready for school every day while their mother (who reportedly suffered from...
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from high school when he was only 15 years old. He earned his Ph.D. when he was 25 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign against racial discrimination at the age of 35. Although his life tragically ended at the young age of 39, his legendary service and teachings continue to influe...
With the holidays coming up I thought that writing about some first-hand experiences with Title One kids and the ways they deal with the holidays should be helpful so that we can be more sensitive to their situations. Most of the time we do not know all the details...
I read yesterday that there are more planets in the universe than seconds have passed since the Big Bang. It’s not even close - 20 sextillion planets (conservativ...
This article was originally published on our blog 06-29-2018 and we think it's appropriate to revisit as September is Suicide Awareness month.
Suicide touches everyone, in one way or another. Perhaps you welcomed Anthony Bourdain into your living room by watching his p...
My grandmother, a former teacher, recently passed away (July 11, 2019) - living a full and active life of 105 years. She was my inspiration for becoming a teacher, and we had a countless number of conversations about teaching and how things have changed from then to now. (She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Wisconsin in the 1930s and 194...
Almost 2 years ago, my family and I moved from a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota to a rural part of western Wisconsin. After some training, practice, and several mistakes, I learned how to use a snowblower and a lawn tractor (allowing me to do my part of maintaining the acres of land we now owned). Before then, I never thought about learning how to operate those machines - I didn’t think I...
Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks - the history of the United States is comprised of inspiring and intriguing women. March is National Women’s History month. We’ve put together five activities to help you and your students honor and learn more about the notable women of our past and present.
100 Years of Incredible Women
The first female...
Here in the United States, 41% of children under of the age of 18 years are part of low-income or poor families. According to the 2016 federal poverty threshold statistics, a family of four (2 parents and 2 children) with a household income of $48,678 or less is considered low-income, while a family of four earning $24,339 or less is considered poor.
Childhood poverty can impact stude...
October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness month. We’re here to get you prepared with a list of valuable activities, lessons, and resources designed to help prevent and address bullying among students in grades K–12.
Let’s begin with a feel-good video for everyone:
Inspire kindness...
Suicide touches everyone, in one way or another. Perhaps you welcomed Anthony Bourdain into your living room by watching his popular CNN show, Parts Unknown. Maybe your favorite handbag was designed by
Hyper-active, never stops talking, has a ton of energy, inability to sit still, talks excessively, nudging other kids…these were words used to describe Michael Phelps’ behavior, an Olympic gold-medalist swimmer, during his preschool and elementary school years. Perhaps he was bored in school? Maybe he was just an immature boy?
At the age of nine, when his symptoms continu...
As an educator, do I have a personal agenda in addressing the LGBTQ issues in our classrooms and lives?
Yes.
Let me share the “why” of my answer.
I have two brothers. We three siblings grew up in the same Judeo-Christian family. Today one brother lives with his wife and has raised his kids. The other brother lives with his partner and has raised his kid...
