[Author's note: I love Foyble.com and its potential to add relevance and voice to students' community service. I greatly appreciate the opportunities I have to work with Foyble.com, but I am in no way compensated by the site.]
Monday night I Skyped with Brian Foy (@Foyble_org), a co-founder of Foyble.com, and Jack King (@drjackking), founder [...]
Last week during a bout of insomnia, I watched The Remains of the Day twice in a row. I had never seen it before or read the book, though I dearly love and frequently sniffle while reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The Remains of the Day follows Mr. Stevens, a butler, who serves [...]
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the TwitterKids of Tanzania – students tweeting in English with followers from around the world. I’m also sure many of you are much more adept than I am at breaking down the walls of the classroom with tools like Twitter, Skype, Google for Educators, wikis, [...]
When a student asks me a question, I try to answer with a question. Call it Socratic Method Lite.
However, there’s one question I keep answering over and over again, and I need to stop. Whenever a student asks me, “Why does this matter?”, I’m ready with one of three flavors of [...]
Relationships come first in a joyful classroom. Students’ success and their enjoyment of it depend on positive relationships at school. Certainly, students need to feel safe around their classmates in order to take the academic risks that lead to meaning-making. Students unwilling to share any of themselves with others will have a [...]
[Editor's note: Guest blogger Damani Harrison, gifted musician and mentor, joins Classroots.org for a series of posts sharing his take on authentic engagement in teaching and learning. Damani works for the Music Resource Center, "a state-of-the-art facility where teens can learn the latest technology in the music industry and study and participate in every phase [...]
Trevor Przyuski works as an instructional coach for Albemarle County Public Schools. In, “Let Them Own It,” he writes about the tension between children’s authentic engagement with personally meaningful work and their struggles with traditional school work. By sharing an anecdote from his own experience as a classroom teacher, Trevor offers a model of instructional [...]
I’m very grateful to be able to share with you the work going on at Murray High School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Murray High School is “the world’s first Glasser Quality Public High School.” The school uses William Glasser’s Choice Theory and Quality Schools framework to re-engage students with the joy of learning. [...]
Learning’s Horizon
“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”
-Tomas Paine
Everyone takes sides in education. People disagree about what’s best for students, but agree that students and their success matter most. The dividing lines get drawn between adults debating definitions, outcomes, and processes. What is success? Who [...]
Chad teaches humanities at a charter school and blogs on reforming classroom practice and democratic education.
