Literacy teacher in a middle grades classroom for 28 years with more to go
Joined August 2023
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Even the students of special education students with severe challenges in academic classes demand As and Bs now. I had one question her son's low C just recently. His C was after his retest accommodations were used. He had an F before.
There's only one thing that causes a class to break out into spontaneous applause, and that is finishing a book together. It happened today. They are already asking when we start the next one.
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...managing loads on working memory, using direct instruction, & ensuring lots of retrieval practice is the best differentiation you can do.
One problem (out of many) with mixed ability classes that stretch across seven reading levels and are filled with students with IEPs, 504s, and gifted & talented is the toll on the teacher's working memory. Cognitive load theory should not just be a concern for students.
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I have just completed a series of four professional development videos on the subject of teaching effective whole-class reading lessons.
These videos contain high-quality footage of me teaching each part of the reading lesson structures from Primary Reading Simplified.
>>
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Peter Hitchens gloriously pushing back against the idea that 5-year-olds shouldn't be made to learn poetry by heart.
Teacher Bull retweeted
D-Day was one of the most monumental days in the history of mankind.
Don’t take my word for it, watch this video from Andy Rooney, who saw it with his own eyes.
Share it with everyone you know, especially your kids.
Teacher Bull retweeted
Today I realized why I am so annoyed with my job. It’s because I care and have morals. Most people in education don’t care and have no morals. Thats the honest truth.
Teacher Appreciation Week and the month of May remind of the American expectation of teachers: to create fun memories for students. I had students write letters to an 🧵
no different, yet they should know better. They thank teachers for loving their children like they are their own, helping their child feel safe, etc. Of course it's important to have a safe and encouraging learning environment, but admins like to tell teachers
The bloated number of school administrators is bad enough, but now it's becoming a perk of the job to "work from home" without losing any leave days even when sick or experiencing a bereavement. I'm learning this is done in several districts. Has anyone else heard of this?
"Teachers, even brilliant ones, shouldn't have to be both the composer and conductor of a curriculum." AMEN!
I was fortunate to observe Dawn teach a lesson from the Word Mapping Project curriculum earlier this year. After about three minutes I started getting goosebumps. I began writing furiously as it was exactly what I envisioned a Word Mapping lesson should look like. Teachers, even brilliant ones, shouldn't have to be both the composer and conductor of a curriculum. This is an example of a brilliant teacher bringing curriculum to life.
Finally this persistent and long-standing issue is seeing the light of day!
People working in schools are often going full tilt, constantly busy, always stimulated by their environment. I'm increasingly aware of this as a problem around three limitations that affect everyone:
a) Cognitive bandwidth- you can only think about so many things at once
b) Chronological bandwidth- your time is finite, and only so much can be done
c) Emotional bandwidth- you can only care about so much at once
Overloading any one of these three leads to that sinking sense of helplessness, stress, and being overwhelmed. We often conflate all of these as workload, but that collapses too many things into one. I also think that they play off against each other. Lack of time affects what you can think about; but having to juggle too many relationships can also exhaust what you can get done, etc.
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Misaligned incentives.
We reward successful HS football coaches with high pay, a great deal of authority and autonomy within their programs, and praise in local media.
We tend to ignore elementary schools, treat excellent and poor teachers pretty much identically, and don't report the school's "scores" for at least a year after the "game" is over.
The push for teachers to build relationships is nothing more than compensation for the diminished respect for teachers and classroom norms as if teachers and teachers alone can repair this.
Teacher Bull retweeted
Principals - if you let your special education co-teachers sit in the back of classrooms writing IEPs, or miss classes for meetings (unless an emergency one), or fail to do anything constructive as a co-teacher, then the fault is ALL yours. I’d have never allowed that in my schools.