March Malaise: Restorative Justice Stress Points
When reminiscing on the March Malaise and the stress points being surfaced with our current Restorative Justice practices, I recalled a similar issue I faced while teaching back in 2006. Thursday, March 30, 2006 Drowning* Imagine being in water fifteen feet deep, your arms are getting tired, and your feet can no longer help you maintain buoyancy. You begin to panic; your heart races; you desperately grasp for air. Nothing must be more frightening than those first moments a pe
Why Do You Rise?
Each day we leave our homes with a mission, may it be a mission to be the best in life, at work, or with our families, but we leave with a purpose. However, particularly for people of color, on a daily basis, we enter a world where our images aren’t the norm and we encounter a variety of obstacles unknown to many. One morning in the summer of 2010, I had a conversation with a White classmate enrolled in my special education master’s degree program at The George Washington Un
How to Bring EDxED To Your School!
“Professional Development is meant to develop you professionally, not serve as purely administrative time.” That one line, delivered by the passionate and talented Walter Brown of Hudson HSLT, completely changed my perspective on professional development. How often had I sat through meetings during my mandated “Professional Development” time to talk through administrative checklists? Even in the furthest stretches of the imagination, the it would be a stretch to call much of
Owning Student Failures: Implications For Effective Parent Teacher Conferences
Sometimes I hear myself and others say, “I can’t get that kid to do any work”. Sometimes I am even guilty of saying, “that kid doesn’t do anything (in class)”. I would even admit that at one point in my career I may have even considered a student to be “lazy” because they fail to hand in assignments. A subtle, but obvious, shift in my thinking helps me manage my approach to how I deal with my most disengaged students. A shift that has made this common frustration far more
Crisis Point: The State of Literacy in America
The United States is facing a literacy crisis. Yes, crisis. It isn’t new, but its impact upon our kids, our economy, and our society are far-reaching and expanding. How bad is it? Take a look at some numbers. More than 30 million adults in the United States cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third grade level. — ProLiteracy Children whose parents have low literacy levels have a 72 percent chance of being at the lowest reading levels themselves. These children are mo
Solving School Problems? Ask the Experts — NYC Teachers!
The room was full of educational leaders from across the city, there to learn more about how to bring technology into school buildings, classrooms, and into the hands of the students they served. The mission was a good one. In 2008 the majority of schools still had limping-along access to the internet with maybe a computer in every classroom though mostly it was the teacher’s computer. Some schools were experimenting with giving students laptops, but mostly schools had comput
Parkland's Student Activists Are Getting a Powerful Civics Lesson
In a typical high school civics class, students learn about local and federal government and media literacy, as well as citizenship and participation. They might learn how to contact their local representative, use social media for advancing a cause, or debate an issue they feel strongly about. But few students—and only a small fraction of adult citizens for that matter—participate in a highly contentious national debate. Mere weeks after the Parkland, Fla., high school shoot
The Importance of Balance and Collaboration in Education
Educators are often overwhelmed. So much so, that many new to the profession leave within their first five years. Unfortunately the frustrations don't permit all who enter our field to tap into the fulfillment, joy, and opportunities our career has to offer. In fourteen years as a NYCDOE teacher I have had a very different experience. Yes, the first few years were challenging. Deciding how to best support my students while managing time, taking on as many on and off site lear
Make It Here: Maker Ed in NYC
Early Saturday morning isn’t the time you’d expect a rowdy gathering of high school students to pour into the cafeteria at Fashion Industries. But there they were, some armed with cups of cocoa, most looking around at the collection of random objects, from twine to bowling balls, that they would use to build a Rube Goldberg trigger for a paper roller coaster. Given the time limit of just one day, the kids rolled up their sleeves and got to work applying what they know about p