Teaching
As an educator who loves to share tips for teachers both inside and outside the classroom, you can follow this page to find all my education-related posts. You will find tips, tricks, lesson plans, inspiration, and more.
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Helping Kids Swing to New Heights
Scaffolding is a tool that great educators use instinctively. I don’t like the metaphor behind the term, however. We need a better visual image and story to help illustrate exactly what it means. Angela C. Santomero provides one for us in her brilliant book, Preschool Clues . . . “Imagine a preschooler is playing on the […]
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Hip Hop HeadUcatorz present . . . Each One Teach One
Celebrate World Teacher Day with a new track and animated video. Everything about this track, from the beat, to the art, to the rhymes, to the cuts were done by eight educators who just happen to be hip-hop heads. Presenting “Each One Teach One” by Hip Hop HeadUcatorz. Producer, I.Khan, teaches in the GTA. His […]
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The Magic in the Pause (Lessons from Blue’s Clues)
When Blue’s Clues premiered in 1995, it was truly unique and revolutionized preschool television with the use of something called the four-beat Pause. It worked this way, Steve, the host of the show, would break the fourth wall and ask the viewer a question. He would then pause and give the chance for the viewer […]
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Beats N’ Rhymes: A PA Day Experience (Friday)
Beats N’ Rhymes is a unique P.A. Day Experience that will be held at the Boys & Girls Club of London this Friday. It’s an introduction to the world of creating your own beats from scratch. You’ll learn the basics of music production, sampling sounds, and sequencing your own composition. You will also learn how to […]
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The Night Before the First Day of School
Here’s an excerpt from “Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo. I thought it was fitting to share on this, the last day of summer vacation. It is written from the perspective of a teenage girl. I will be blogging about this verse novel soon. It was a great read! Let’s stick with the night-before-school theme and check […]
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Build Vocabulary by Reading an Article a Day
I love when I get great teaching ideas from whatever is I am reading in my spare time. This one comes courtesy of Alan Gelb from his book, The Seven Steps to Confident Writing. I think I will make this a daily homework assignment next year. I very rarely assign homework. I think that if […]
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Teachers Should Dress Professionally
We are Teachers is a Twitter account that “offer ideas, inspiration, and information for your best days—and double that for your hard ones. Supporting kids means supporting educators, always.” A few days ago, they posed a question to teachers about attire. They asked us how we felt about wearing jeans to school. I don’t think it […]
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There is More Than One Profound Truth
“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” ― Niels Bohr Neil Postman helps break down this thought. He writes, “It is better to have access to more than one profound truth. To be able to hold comfortably in one’s […]
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Get Your Students To Unbelieve
Psychologist Kevin Dutton has coined a term for something I am sure you have seen at some point in your career as educator. Have you ever had a student, or group of students, actively resist your attempts to teach them? Do they seem to completely reject the whole process? Dutton refers to this as ‘unbelief.” […]
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Annoying Your Students is Ideal
“I annoy my students on a number of levels. I don’t praise them enough: I’m always being critical, finding fault in their work. I make them commit to a writing project—choose the subject of their essays—almost immediately. I don’t tolerate procrastination. And I make them go out into the world and do immersions.” This passage […]