Lien On Me

Weeks after this school year ends, teachers will slowly lose track of time. In school, the calendar and clock rules their schedules so unwinding from living in overdrive is arduous. Teachers have to be able to purge the mental and emotional demands of the previous school year in order to readily engage in future school years. When the pressures fade, we know that the sweet spot of the summer has arrived. During the sweet spot of summer, teachers can regain their own purpose without expectations from others. Teachers are able to discover what they need rather than responding to the requirements of others. Teachers can rediscover the fulfillment of learning what they would like to explore and strengthen. Teachers love to create and curate with other teachers. This is when teachers are able to see themselves as experts of their craft. A tool that will spark possibilities and provide teachers autonomy for their own learning is 2gno.me. It is a cloud-based platform that will maximize the po

In May, the days are long and the weeks are short. The school year is coming to an end and the list of responsibilities for teachers increases. Although the weeks are few, the days feel prolonged and arduous. As the number of days left in the school year decreases; the number of responsibilities for teachers increases. A teacher's workload at the end of the school year and at the beginning of the school year are always insurmountable. However, this entire school year remained at this intensity. It's easy to assume teacher responsibilities reached historical proportions by the climbing rates of attrition. No one is trained to do this. It is humanly impossible to do it well. In December 2020, I asked " Will 2020 be inconsequential? " and it didn't take long to find out. The Aftermath  was obvious months ago and it has deteriorated. The teaching  apocalypse is upon us and school systems are culpable.  This crisis will only be remedied if  July is the Most Reflective

The perfect storm hit the teaching field in March 2020. For awhile, it appeared the field was going to survive and thrive through the turmoil. Teachers were being hailed as heroes as they persevered through the changing environments determined to keep students connected to learning. When the 2020-21 school year started, school districts faced a paradigm shift. As the months passed, it was evident teacher knowledge was not going to be systematically included in the structures being built. The collective wisdom of teachers were ignored and teacher voices were disregarded. This was a colossal mistake and a missed opportunity. Although I was sitting on the sidelines newly retired (1983-2019), I had high hopes that teacher expertise was finally going to be able to seize the field. Teachers are the primary sources of knowing how to engage students in this current reality. I anticipated the value of teachers to soar and for teachers to be relied upon to design solutions for learning. Instead,

Across the country, teachers are emerging from a well deserved break and busy organizing their classrooms. If anyone is under the assumption that this process happens with little effort, then they need to follow a teacher in August. Although teachers have spent months thinking about how they will create learning spaces for the coming year, they have to wait until their rooms have been cleaned. Teachers eagerly anticipate the day they are given permission to enter their domain, while knowing it will be distressing. Often, they have to search for items that have gone missing or repair/replace items that have been damaged over the summer. The cost of appropriately designing the interior of every classroom is rarely in a school budget. The professional time it takes a teacher to work on their classrooms is never paid in full. There is an enormous amount of planning and preparation that goes into producing a classroom environment for student learning. A myriad of factors need to be consider

As the school year comes to a close, a teacher's celebration of the successes are escalating. The accomplishments are becoming more pronounced and evident to a teacher because the effect of teaching is cumulative.  The intensity of pressures that once felt impossible to endure are easing. The excessive demands that were causing distress are dissipating. These tensions are a testament to a teacher's perseverance and expertise. Although, I often wonder why inordinate pressures and demands are normalized in teaching. What would we find if teachers could work in contexts with reasonable expectations? Remarkably, teachers are able to navigate through countless challenges while educating and nurturing their students' social, emotional and academic growth. The pandemic presented inconceivable requirements and teachers pioneered through it by persisting for their students. Teachers were the first responders for engaging students in learning. The wisdom teachers demonstrate should b

It’s shocking that a year has elapsed in uncharted territory with evolving learning environments without categorically acquiring the wisdom from the exclusive authorities in teaching and learning. As far as I’m concerned, teachers who have been teaching for the past year are the “exclusive authorities.” How could anyone, such as myself with 36 years of teaching experience pre-COVID, allege they know how to teach today? The disruption to educational systems was not temporary, yet we didn’t foster or preserve the knowledge of the pioneers in teaching and the engineers in learning. It’s not surprising a pandemic could not crumble the barriers to unleashing teaching and learning expertise from the primary sources. The barriers are historically systemic, pervasive and uncomplicated. To reduce the barriers, it would require investing in autonomous conditions, relinquishing control, and professional trust. We can trace how teacher wisdom has been placated and dismissed over time, therefore th