Last year around this time, I was introduced to Mr. Wayne, a history teacher at one of the schools where I was doing some coaching. I sat down with Mr. Wayne and other members of his team to help them learn how to plan more rigorous units and lessons in preparation for his district’s adoption [...]
Lately as I have been coaching teachers, I have noticed something disturbing. Many teachers do not trust themselves. In fact, I believe that we have teacher-proofed teaching so much that now teachers are afraid to teach. Many turn off their brains and simply do what they are told. Just recently, I observed an elementary teacher [...]
By: Robyn R Jackson Recently I had to come face to face with a brutal fact. I had to re-brand. We don’t talk about branding much in education. It seems as if branding is something that we leave to those folks in business and marketing. Education has always been viewed as being on a higher [...]
By:Robyn R. Jackson One Thanksgiving my father’s entire family gathered at my great uncle’s house for dinner — all seventy of us. We had a ball from the oldest (91) to the youngest (4 months). After dinner, I was standing near the pool table talking to one of my uncles when one of my littlest cousins, aged 2, [...]
Just the other day I was helping a group of teachers plan rigorous units. As we were creating essential questions and thinking through the standards, I asked what I thought was a simple question: Why are you teaching this? The teachers were stumped. They had no idea why it was important that students learn the [...]
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about educational reform. Schools are broken, the narrative goes, so we have to do something to fix them. The “something” currently in vogue is a combination of market-based reforms such as merit pay and value-added scores, mixed with a fawning adoration of charters and alternative routes to certification. [...]
As educators we structure our daily routines, lessons, grading procedures, fire drills, and lunchtime procedures. And yet, many teachers are overlooking a critical element that needs structure –the binder and the plan book.
