In the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, an arrogant graduate student in economics embarrasses Will Hunting's non-academic friend (Ben Affleck) by pointing out his lack of education and tries to prove his own intellectual...

Writing for education publications is a thrill. It’s synergistic, too. Writing about teaching makes us better teachers, and teaching students makes us better writers. And though we may not realize it at first,...

We all know that late-in-the-day feeling—we’ve taught the same lesson in each of four class periods, and there’s still one more to go. In this 5th period, we’re on automatic pilot, relying on...

In the race to complete reports that prove the immediate value-added measures of our teaching, we've lost sight of one of the most powerful teaching tools we have: patience. Teacher patience is the heart of students'...

If we’re not careful, we may lose our intellectual selves. We can grow numb with repeated exposure to ideology and structures built to maintain the school’s status quo. With each passing year, our...

These are the messages in action or in word that students want to hear daily from teachers. To promote these themes, we give students positions of responsibility and the know-how to do them: running the daily...

In every country in the world, we elevate those who endure, especially against overwhelming odds. We exalt politician William Wilberforce, who led a challenging campaign to end all slavery in the British empire. We...

It was bright orange and boxy. I had used it repeatedly to "catch air," plowing over snow piles at high speed in school parking lots during the winter. Doing these stunts was safe, I reasoned: It was the family...

You are required to attend an inservice training about teaching in the block-length class even though your school is not moving to a block schedule this year or in the near future. How attentive will you be to all...

I look at the 16 students in my classroom. On any other day, 35 students would be looking back at me, but today the other 19 are eating cake and being honored at the morning's honor roll assembly. What am I supposed...