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“I love the silence when we’re all together in a moment when someone’s said something that really lands. It’s an ineffable presence, not even contained in a voice. We’re all considering or holding something together — it’s that intimate kind of silence where you don’t need to speak. I teach for those kinds of moments.”
“One thing I love is when a student has that a-ha moment where they connect the concept we’re discussing with some kind of real world knowledge where the text matters. I also love when a student really listens to learn and then states that he/she has changed his or her mind.”
Three voices embrace the complexities of life and learning at this moment — and encourage us to push through them.
“…when a kid references something that another kid said in a previous class — that just shows, to me, that a kid deeply respects the humanity and intellect of their classmates and the work that we do together. They’re showing that they value discussion and showing the value of it at the same time.”
Active learning, at least at first, benefits extroverts more than introverts. What can we do about it?
An interview with Natalie Nixon, creativity wunderkind.
Arguing that the commonly upheld binary between logic and emotion is false, Eugenia Cheng suggests that we would all communicate clearly if we actively integrated both.
“All the magic is in the classroom.” I really agree — it’s the best place to be in a school. I was always thinking that I wanted to be a school leader, and I think that when my department head told me to live in the moment and do my best — that what was meant to be for me would be — as a young teacher, I need that perspective.
Paraphrasing, by Bergman’s definition, is a retelling of what a student has just said in similar, perhaps clearer, words. He notes, though, that in such moments paraphrase a teacher often “ignores missing pieces and inaccuracies.”
As teachers, we’re taught not to play favorites, but that’s a difficult task. There are good reasons why.
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