Watching the live reporting of the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021, I was thinking about two things: racial inequities in policing, and bias in the word choice used to report collective actions. This blog focuses on word choice, and how we can teach students to listen and read critically for bias.
In this blog post, I invite readers to back up from the K-12 context and reflect on how we connect and collaborate in our own lives. And in a pandemic, how we build connections that matter when we are miles apart and limited to digital tools.
Enjoy and share this video with a comforting message to families in sixteen languages.
This is an essential question to ask when a student struggles. It’s an essential question to engage educators in asking when they analyze data together to improve teaching for equity and EL excellence.
Our data shows some students are struggling in our lessons. Now what?
This is the pivotal moment. Do we focus on providing supports to the students who demonstrate struggle? Or do we also focus on how to evolve our teaching? Are we using data only to sort students for services, or also to challenge our assumptions and change our approach?
This is part II of a coffee chat with Andrea Honigsfeld, Maria G. Dove and Tonya Ward Singer on how to collaborate for EL achievement.
Reading old family letters I discovered something I never expected to find. Join me on this humbling journey.
“Instead of brushfires for excellence, we need infernos of excellence. Our project will do this.” In a packed hotel conference room in Albuquerque, New Mexico, teacher leader Maureen Torrez, NBCT, describes the observation inquiry pilot project she and her team of National Board Certified Teachers are leading to deepen how teachers and students learn in Albuquerque public schools.
We need every teacher to believe in the full potential of every kid. Most of us share this belief, in theory. In practice, things get a little more complicated. It’s easy, for example, in a school where most students underperform, to adjust our expectations of what is possible to fit what we see. It is much more challenging to hold a vision that extends beyond the status quo, and help kids grow into that vision.
Here seven powerful practices you can use in your school to raise expectations for all students, especially ELLs, students of color, students living in poverty, or any students who are not yet thriving.
The language we use to talk about students matters. It reflects and shapes our perceptions, and most importantly, our expectations for student success.
In your school, make a courageous commitment to shift all staff conversations about kids and their families from a deficit mindset, which views diversity as a problem kids bear, to an asset mindset: one which truly values students and their communities for the diversity they bring. Begin by reframing these four sentences.
