self care Search Results

Episode 61: Seven Systems that Work for Outside-the-Box Learners

…type. I was not diagnosed with ADHD at the time. I was just … The message that I got is that I was lazy, and that I didn’t care, and I didn’t try hard enough. So I find that that exact same message is what a lot of my students are still hearing, even though it’s 2017: “You’re lazy. You’re not trying hard enough. You don’t care about school enough.” So I went through school, wasn’t a good student. Finally in high school I started failing classes. I went to college on probation, on academic probation, literally, because I had…

Episode 49: Dialogue Journals

…try and write a lot. GONZALEZ: At least a long one, yeah. GALARZA: Right. And as far as questions go, another thing I learned in my research is that it’s not really a good idea to ask a lot of questions, because it puts me in a very authoritative teacher mode, and I’m trying to remove myself from that persona. So I kind of try and get them to ask questions. GONZALEZ: OK. So are you mostly revealing things about yourself and your own thoughts and reflecting on some of the things they said without asking direct questions? GALARZA: Absolutely….

Episode 3: The Montessori Method

…it’s a paradox. You have to detach yourself. Gonzalez: Well I was going to ask “Do you ever reach a point where you ever just lose patience? Do you ever just kind of” […] Bossut: You know if I feel honestly then I remove myself. I remove myself from the situation because it’s not– That’s where I become the obstacle. If I’ve reached that level of frustration, I’m no longer guiding. I’m imposing. Gonzalez: Well and I’ve seen you in action when you are not frustrated and you are this boy who was really having a hard time finding something,…

After the Election: A To-Do List

…alternatives. 4. Teach media literacy. With so many news outlets to choose from, it’s easy for people to pick the one that filters current events through whatever lens they like. Those outlets have done a bang-up job of pitting us against each other, and we need to help the next generation be less susceptible to media manipulation. While we’re at it, we can also help kids develop a more critical eye when it comes to social media: Let’s help them practice using their words carefully online, to understand how their social media relationships shape their character and self-perception, and to…

How We Pronounce Student Names, and Why it Matters

yogikojie The mispronunciation of names can be very frustrating and embarrassing. During role call, whenever there is an awkward silence, I know that my name is next so instead of listening to my name being butchered, I usually relieve the person from saying my name and say it myself. Nobody likes to hear their name being pronounced incorrectly, but unfortunately as a teacher, I have been guilty of mispronouncing my student’s names. Being a foreigner myself, instead of teaching people the correct way to say my full name, I either shorten it or make it easier for both them and…

Episode 47: Black Girls and School: We Can Do Better

…the educators to respond to the situation. Rather, what it does is just remove the situation from our view, and we assume that it’s taken care of, when we know really in fact it’s not taken care of at all. GONZALEZ: Let’s take any one of these situations – the girl is then removed from class. Then, what are the repercussions from that point forward for her? MORRIS: What we have to understand, and what I argue, I hope in a compelling way, is that education is a critical protective factor against contact with the criminal and juvenile legal system,…

What Advice Would You Give a Student Teacher?

…good professional development programs. Be in the habit of attending conferences and workshops — NCTE (the National Council of Teachers of English) has student rates and I am willing to bet other professional groups do, too. Get out on social media and follow the teachers and organizations that you see making a positive difference. There are regularly scheduled Twitter chats, Nings, and blogs that are awesome ways to network and get resources and support. Carve out time and space for self-care. Teaching can be an all-consuming career and you can burn yourself out. Eat healthy, exercise regularly, and spend time…

How Dialogue Journals Build Teacher-Student Relationships

…making connections, circulating the room and touching base with everyone. After they took care of their morning routines, they’d go to their table to read their journal. They knew I’d be coming by and if they wanted my help, they’d need to be prepared. That meant telling me exactly what they needed help with and what they already tried to do on their own. This led to some self-direction, accountability and eventually more confidence. On my end, it also served as a bit of a formative assessment. If a student wasn’t prepared, I just told them I’d swing back if…

Why is my kid allowed to make spelling mistakes?

Dear Cult of Pedagogy, Last week, my son brought home a stack of papers from his first-grade class. Some of them had obvious spelling errors, but no one had marked them wrong. Later that same day, I was helping my 10-year-old daughter with a research paper. I noticed a few misspellings on her draft, but when I pointed them out, she said, “My teacher told us not to worry about spelling when we’re drafting.” What’s the deal? Why don’t teachers seem to care about spelling anymore? When kids first learn how to write, they grapple with many different skills at…