Teacher-Leader Voices
Past and present state teachers of the year weighed in on the most pressing issues in K-12 education, sharing their most promising insights from the classroom and seeding critical conversations about the future of teaching and learning. This blog is no longer being updated.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
What We've Learned Teaching Teacher Candidates About Equity
Educators who do not attend to issues of equity and justice in their classrooms are doing a great disservice to the future leaders of our profession and to the students they will one day teach.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Librarians: It's Time to Get on the Front Lines
School libraries cannot (and must not) assume neutrality. Our silence when staring into the face of hate speaks to a complicity that does not coincide with library values.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Want Students to See Themselves as Thinkers? Get Them Writing
Thinking like a scientist means acting like one -- and that involves writing in the ways that scientists do.
School & District Management
Opinion
4 Things Great Principals Don't Do
There is a balance that great principals learn, and because of that balance, they generally have happy teachers in their classrooms.
Professional Development
Opinion
When Principals Forget How Learning Works
I wish school leaders could cede some of this space and work to their teachers who know better than anyone else how learning happens and how to make that new knowledge stick
Professional Development
Opinion
Let's Be Honest: Professional Bullying in Schools Is a Thing
When a teacher lives in fear of confrontation, ridicule or being talked about, this is professional bullying.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
Social-Emotional Skills Should Be an Integral Part of Every Lesson We Teach
As I have come to understand and teach social and emotional skills, I've learned they can't be—indeed, should not be—viewed as something separate from our lessons, or something to be taught one hour a week. These skills are part of everything we do.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
What Families Really Need From a Teacher's Back-to-School Letter
Now isn't the time for reminders about materials and copying and pasting your district's tardy policy. Now is the time to let parents know what is most important to you as a teacher, what big goals you have for their students, and start forming the team that will get you there.
Professional Development
Opinion
After Charlottesville: Having Tough Conversations in an Age of Extremism
Unlearning to be an extremist is hard. Help students avoid propaganda: When students are exposed to propaganda, misinformation, and fake news it becomes difficult for them to unlearn.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
There Has Never Been a Better Time to Teach Social Justice
As educators, we recognize that cannot stand by and say nothing while acts of racism and hate are perpetrated against our citizens by our citizens. Each of us must decide whether or not we will be a bystander or a resistor, one who condones or one who resists.
Professional Development
Opinion
Teaching, Like Golf, Is 'No Easy Game'
Like learning to golf, when teachers first begin, they also struggle to master complex skills. Most enter the classroom with a basic understanding of pedagogy but very little practical experience. They are drawn to the seemingly green, lush fairways of teaching, but very soon they realize teaching is no easy game.
Education
Opinion
How Does School Choice Work in Rural Schools?
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has made it clear that she has a single agenda item: to improve options for all students via school choice programs. But many rural educators are not convinced. They ask, how does choice work, exactly, in rural states?
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
Student Trauma Is Real. But Connection Can Heal.
Restorative Practices are flexible and responsive approaches to establishing, developing, and restoring relationships that enable people to develop a shared sense of community in an increasingly disconnected world.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Opinion
My Math Tests Didn't Change Me, But a Community Concert Did
When you think back to your own education, what pops up into your mind? Is it that really awesome standardized math test you took in 5th grade or the art project that got to hang in the Anchorage Museum of Art?