Thinking About Education

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. ~Socrates

Out of the Mouths of Babes

As a teacher mentor, one of the first things I do after meeting and greeting a new teacher (and asking what areas she’d like help with) is to visit a class and give the teacher comprehensive feedback on their teaching from fresh, objective eyes. I tell them all the good things I see them doing and describe their best qualities as teachers. Then I give some suggestions about the areas with which they.. Read More

Tiger Basketball

  Inspired by one of my young students, this poem is especially for children who prefer visual art expression to reading and writing   TIGER BASKETBALL   I see the lines I see the color   They are bold And they are bright   I see a tiger in the basketball I see a panther in the night   I love to paint I love to draw   It doesn’t matter If “was” is.. Read More

Opening our Eyes, Ears, and Minds to Reading

  Students who struggle with reading, or perhaps anything, do so for different reasons. The most rewarding and interesting part of my graduate work in literacy was learning how to diagnose and then design appropriate lessons for individual students who struggled with reading or writing and find ways to solve their problems or at least get around them. As a core classroom teacher, there is little time to delve so deeply into individual.. Read More

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