Controversial topics, ideas, and questions that aren’t easy to answer. Comments welcome!
What if I started a homeschool? If I could tell you how many times that question left my lips in the past year, you’d probably laugh. And actually, my boyfriend did. Until he realized I was absolutely, without-a-doubt serious and determined to make it work.
On October 20, 2017 the #WhyIWrite hashtag was used 93,956 times on Twitter.
This breaks down to 38,928 original tweets.
53,655 retweets.
And an estimated reach of 191 million people. Continue reading
Today’s kids are inundated with social media updates, the prevalence of internet-related activities, the ease of everything at their fingertips, etc. Though technology has so many benefits and the use of it is not wrong, there is a direct correlation between an increase and technology and a decrease in positive mental health. Continue reading
In early February, a family friend shared this powerful article about a young boy’s suicide and the note he left behind for family and friends. I read the article, the note, found myself nodding my head in agreement, and over the past two months have thought about this young boy so many times that I knew I had to write about him. His story is one of pain and pressure, of constantly feeling the stress from a society that’s saying ‘more more more.’
As an educator, and someone who works closely with kids and teens, this story was heartbreaking. We need to talk about pressure; we need to talk about what this pressure looks like in the lives of our students. Continue reading
Just the other day I stumbled across a powerful piece on school shootings and how they’ve shaped (American) society emotionally, politically, spiritually, and in terms of our literature. The article, “When Change Doesn’t Happen: School Shootings and the Piles of Novels That Follow” by Maria Eliades brought forth some striking information and perspectives that I thought were necessary to discuss. Continue reading
One of the things I heard the most during my teaching experience was, “How does this relate to my future?” and typically students would say this in relation to learning how to read Shakespeare, writing research papers, or something that wasn’t ‘blatantly’ relevant to the contemporary world.
I would always tell them that English (especially writing and reading) were two of the most important and fundamental skills for survival. I would talk about resume-writing, job applications, sending emails, etc. – all the relevant ways we use our English-based skills every single day. Sometimes they would nod in agreement, or stand there silently taking note, or wrinkle their nose in aggravation that they hadn’t stumped me.
What I’ve learned, however, is that writing is not only essential, it’s actually beautiful. Since leaving the education world and diving headfirst into writing and editing for my full-time career, I’ve realized how valuable writing has been to me, and want to share that with you in hopes that you can encourage both yourself, and your students. Continue reading
In a powerful letter by Darein C. Spann, a member of the Mississippi Association of Educators, he addresses the major concerns of the contemporary school system regarding test scores and how we, as a society must reduce the level of importance we place on these numbers. Continue reading
Have you heard of ‘DiSSS’ or ‘CaFE’?
These is Tim Ferriss’ framework for mastering new information, and it’s perfect for the classroom setting. Continue reading
I stumbled across this article today and just had to share. Something that’s so relevant for teachers (especially English teachers) is that ‘blah’ feeling we get when we know we have a large stack of papers to grade. Don’t get me wrong, as educators we love seeing our students improve and reading their work…but at the same time, knowing you have a (often very dry and very large) pile to get through can be daunting and tiring before the task even begins!
That’s why when I stumbled upon Ken Lindblom’s blog post, I thought, ‘Wow, how could I have missed something so simple, and yet so important?’ And that’s the importance of interest in our students’ papers. Continue reading
