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The Do’s and Don’ts for Teacher Snow Days

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I don’t care what anybody says. Teachers want snow days more than students do.  We have been blessed by the weather gods to have a snow day during the week that we returned from winter break.  On these rare occasions, teachers are faced with the dilemma of what to do on this unexpected day of “free” time. Well that’s what I am here to help you with. The possibilities are endless. I am aware that some options may not be feasible for all lifestyles. However, as a single female and master procrastinator, it works for me. I make these suggestions with the best intentions for you to continue the final stretch of the school year a bit more relaxed. I also hope that a few suggestions tickle your funny bone. This is just my two cents and I’ve created this little blog to share it with you. Here are the do’s and don’ts for teacher snow days. DO Sleep in until at least 10:00 am. Binge-watch Netflix or Hulu or both. Spend an unhealthy amount of time on social media compar
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RACIALLY INSECURE

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The HBO series “Insecure” has cultivated many discussions. More recently, the subject of discrimination has been highlighted in a most creative way. We see the standard example of workplace discrimination in a black female lawyer who earns substantially less than her white male counterparts with as much or less experience and time on the job. I am interested to see where the writers of the show go with this storyline. On a similar note, they’ve included an additional example of discrimination that is not talked about too often in contrast to its lack of subtlety: racial discrimination in our schools. Since this is a delicate topic, I want to preface this by saying that the example that I provide is my own personal experience and does not represent educators as a monolith. Let me begin by providing the context for which I based this post. On the show “Insecure” the main character, Issa, works for a non-profit organization that goes out to the schools to provide various re
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YES, I'M JUDGING

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Here I go again sharing my two cents on something that came across my feed on Facebook. The title of the post “My Title 1 Kids Have $300 Shoes. And It’s Nobody Else’s Business” immediately caught my attention, because 1) I teach at a Title 1 high school and 2) I do judge the students and their parents when I see them with expensive products. The author of this article wrote with a strong tone of sympathy and compassion for her, presumably, immigrant student and his choice to purchase a pair of $300 soccer cleats. She doted on the fact that his family struggled financially and that he actually paid for the shoes himself by working with his father doing landscaping. She complimented the student’s motivation to work hard to get what he wanted and warned teachers against making assumptions and judgements about what our students and their families chose to purchase with their money. Now this is all fine and good, but it is not the narrative for most of the students that I t
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TREAT TEACHERS LIKE STUDENTS

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I have always said that I appreciate professional development that is well-executed and practical. With that being said, during the first two days of my summer vacation, I attended professional development workshops that focused on backward planning and improving school climate and culture. All presentations were led by the same consulting firm, but each presenter was vastly different. The first presenter, on the first day, was engaging enough due to her personality, but she was solely “teacher-centered” and did not provide any activities to break up her lecturing, nor did she provide any handouts to accompany the many slides that she read from and referenced during her presentation. The second presenter was excellent! Since she presented in the morning on the second day, she set the tone for the rest of the day. She began with a fun ice-breaker and implemented (modeled) practices that we could use throughout her entire presentation. She also provided handouts, included vide
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HERE WE GO AGAIN

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It seems that every year there are changes in pedagogy. However, in my opinion, these new concepts are really old ones that are just repackaged and given fancy new names. With the constant influx of theories and research that dictate how we are to teach comes the teacher training workshops usually run by well-paid consultants who have rehearsed their presentation dozens of times to schools across the country, but never actually implementing them and of course not with the at-risk students that I teach. And let’s say that they have worked with students in a school district similar to mine. They most likely worked with a group of hand selected students or at a charter school. Needless to say, this is the case for me yet again this summer. My Title 1 school was awarded a grant to make improvements and one of those improvements is working with a program to improve overall academic performance and to give all  students the option to attend college. That’s perfectly fine with me, but
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