5 Whys about Student Loans in the US

The student loan industry in the US is huge. It employs thousands of people, and generates billions in revenue/interest. It also drives up the cost of college. Click here to see my 5 whys about student loans: https://app.7taps.com/ayRJCxBvfrL

Lesson Planning: reality vs. expectation

Last Spring, when states hit on the idea of having teachers turn in lesson plans for community review, there was a lot of push-back from educators. It's not just a knee-jerk reaction against being micro-managed, or against feeling judged. Asking teachers to write the instrument that will be used to de-professionalize them and provide ammunition…

Professionalism & Churn

Teaching has always suffered from a lack of professionalism, and by that I don't mean that teachers don't act professionally. I mean that we aren't treated as professionals. We are treated as menial, replaceable workers. We are treated as people who just teach while waiting for our spouses to support us, or as missionaries who…

What’s not on the test?

Inspiration for today's rant: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-teachers-at-low-income-schools-deserve-respect/2016/02 I've taught grades 6-12 in public schools in two states. My first school was an IBMYP magnet located in a low SES (Socio-economic status: minority and low income) neighborhood. Our population was heavily impacted by the magnet for my first 3 years, and the biggest impact was that even our…

How it started & how it’s going…

We've all seen those draconian behavioral contracts that supposedly applied to teachers in the 1800's and early 1900's. Down to not drinking at soda fountains, every part of a teacher's life was micromanaged. While Snopes.com dismisses most of those as legend, this example from the Ames museum (https://ameshistory.org/content/teaching-contracts) still gets pretty grim: -no extra pay…

That’s me in the corner…losing my profession.

Apologies to REM, but that's how I feel today. And, in many ways that we don't like to acknowledge, teaching is a religion (or cult). Let's look at some similarities: Teaching is referred to as a vocation and a calling. Mirriam Webster defines a vocation as: In the flood of #transitioningteachers on LinkedIn, or the…