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Information & Inspiration
from real teachers, real students & real research
“We think about “oh, the purpose of this class is to be English class,” but there needs to be a clear purpose for each specific gathering. You get to choose what that template looks like. The structures that go with it should fuel that purpose.”
“There’s a creative force within schools, but to move forward, we need a community-centered approach that draws everyone in to make change. In order for that to happen, something has to drastically disrupt the current system. Possibility and liberation has to become the imperative over maintaining systems.”
“Teaching is demanding! These folks have to be attending to children’s mental health even as they are trying to teach them educational materials. To maintain community well-being, we need to look “upstream” at who’s running the ship, and in the classroom, that is the teacher. Everything’s affected if they’re doing well, or doing poorly. So you, as a teacher, are the upstream influence. Your wellbeing matters — of course your knowledge and skills do too, but to maximize them, we have to be sure you feel good as a human being.”
This week’s Beyond the Syllabus pinpoints three bright fires worth approaching more closely. Book Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. Even before the Atlanta shootings rocked the United States with another round of debates over gun violence and what is or is not a racially-motivated violence, Hong’s collection of essays was a…
We spoke with David McCullough, founder of the American Exchange Project, about building connections across barriers.
We spoke with Rebecca Marcus, English Teacher and Founder of Paper Paragon, whose “favorite moments aren’t even when someone says something really brilliant; it’s when you can look at a student or read their writing and see them finally making the connection, that first step that you’ve been working on for months.”
A group of teacher-researchers suggest that video might be teachers’ key to better professional development as discussion practitioners.
Three sources to expand your vision of womanhood, across history and now.
Two recent articles push us to expand the formality of language and setting that counts as “engagement” in discussion-based courses.
“…community matters. Teaching starts with our relationships to one another and trickles down to students.”
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