In this fourth-grade teacher’s classroom, a long lineup of U.S. presidential faces is tacked on the wall. She reflects on how a new president will soon gaze down on her students.
I hate sheet protectors. Those shiny, clear plastic sheaths have no place in my classroom. When my new ninth-graders hand in their summer reading logs each September, the first thing I do is remove and return all the sheet protectors. They make it impossible for me to maintain my neat stacks of student work. They don’t quite fit into the file folders I use to transport those stacks home to grade them. I have to remove them before I can write any feedback.
We know cliques are common in the middle grades, but don’t forget how prevalent they are in the elementary years. Here’s how one educator helped her young students understand that inclusion isn’t just “nice”—it’s fun, too!
Gary R. Howard has 35 years of experience working with issues of civil rights, social justice, equity, education and diversity. His most recent book, We Can't Teach What We Don't Know (Second Edition, 2006), was published by Columbia University and is considered a groundbreaking examination of privilege, power and the role of white leaders and educators in a multicultural society.
Meghan is a poet, novelist, essayist, science writer and librettist from Boston, Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in The Pitkin Review, The Wick Journal, Applied Sentience, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin and others. Her first novel, Light and Skin, was published by Empty City Press in 2010, and her second book, Kinesiophobia, is scheduled for release in 2017.
Chris Martin is a teaching-writer at Unrestricted Interest and has worked with unconventional students, ASD students and twice-exceptional students for over a decade, specializing in creative writing and executive function. He earned his BA in English at Carleton College; his MA in Poetry, Performance, and Education from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study; and his MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first collection of poems, American Music (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), was selected by C. D. Wright for the Hayden Carruth Prize. Becoming Weather, his
Bilingual books are great tools for teaching languages and changing attitudes about other cultures, but finding quality books can be challenging. Here’s what to look for.