In Part 1, we talked about the three ways teaching is viewed culturally — as profession, job, or calling — and we looked in depth at arguments for considering teaching a profession. In Part 2, we discussed whether teaching is or should be a calling. In Part 3 we’ll look at teaching as a job […]
In Part 1, we talked about the three ways teaching is viewed culturally — as profession, job, or calling — and we looked in depth at arguments for considering teaching a profession. In Part 2, we’re going to examine teaching as a calling. In every interview I ever had for a teaching position, I was […]
It would be overstating things to say that how we define teaching is a hot topic. In light of teacher shortages and high teacher attrition, things like cultural definitions can seem a bit fringe. But I think it’s a question that bears some careful consideration because of those attrition rates, especially among new teachers, and […]
For the first time in 27 years, the U.S. government is updating its classification system for its citizens. The next time the U.S. census is administered in 2030, respondents will have many more options to choose from when they select their race and ethnicity. While this may seem unconnected to education, it’s not. Under the […]
A very recent study from 2023 posed the question of which type of feedback produced the best improvement in writing performance. The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied and was predicated on earlier work that suggested students who generate self-feedback using external criteria (as opposed to individual feedback provided by a […]
Edutopia publishes a list of their favorite academic studies each year and one of the studies they cited this past year was a survey of other studies on the benefits of using picture books as a part of math instruction. It’s not a meta-analysis because they weren’t crunching numbers; rather, it was a compilation of […]
Last week was STAAR Test week in Texas and the first time all public school students in the state took the newly updated and revised STAAR test. This test represents a major overhaul in the content, context, and cognitive demand of the STAAR test, from an instrument that was almost entirely multiple choice with one […]
Diversity is good for students. Quite a lot of research — really a lot — shows that the segregation of schools, both racial and economic, impedes student achievement. One study of the New Jersey public schools from 2020 found that racially diverse schools reduced the achievement gap between white and non-white students: “the achievement gap […]
In 1971, a critical (but perhaps not much noted at the time) shift occurred in the U.S.. In that year, President Nixon vetoed a plan that would have provided universal child care and accompanying preschool for all children. The demise of that plan resulted in a sort of de facto belief that most preschool should […]
Attracting diverse teachers is of critical importance for students of color across a range of metrics — improved achievement, higher rates of attending college, lower suspension rates, and so on. But the actual “state of the states” is fairly dire. Every state and the District of Columbia has a deficit in this area: more students […]