Monday morning first hour. You scan the room and immediately notice Jason, as usual, slouching in his desk. His legs are sprawled out under the desk in front of him, while his shoulders lean against the top of the seat back. He looks comfortable, maybe too comfortable, or as comfortable as you can get when…
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Success Academy: Under pressure
It’s too easy to be shocked by the New York Times’ video clip of a Success Academy teacher tearing up a first-grader’s math paper and publicly chastising her, which is making the rounds on social media. Who would think it is OK to humiliate a first-grader? Who would support a school culture where, as one…
Read MoreSimplest is not always best
According to Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion, teachers should teach everything in the simplest, most straightforward way possible. I just can’t do that. Yesterday I was explaining to my fresh crop of AP Macro students the different types of economic resources: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Sure, I could have given them…
Read MoreReflections on a lesson that didn’t work
There’s a lovely section in Donald Finkel’s book, Teaching with Your Mouth Shut, where he describes a high school literature class discussing Homer’s Iliad. The students generate their own questions about the reading — like, is Homer for or against war? — and learn from each other in a rich discussion, drawing on passages from…
Read MoreTech devices are powerful – but not motivating
The optimists among us see technology creating schools full of self-directed, collaborative workers, using the power of the internet to advance their own learning at light speed. The pessimists see technology allowing teenagers to become image-conscious dabblers, skilled at manipulating their Facebook profiles, taking selfies and playing games — but not much else. This digital…
Read MoreThe goal: Get students to love the work
In 20+ years of teaching, I’ve never heard one student say they deeply enjoyed the time they spent studying for or taking a multiple-choice test — or that they were really engaged by reading the textbook. Working on a meaningful creative project, however, triggers something different. “It sounds cliché, but ‘time flies when you’re having…
Read MoreYou might be surprised who is engaged
What can you do with a student who resists your efforts to engage him, scoffs at your thoughtfully planned assignments and slyly undermines you in class, without ever doing anything overt enough to warrant discipline? I’ve been working on that puzzle for years, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes, the best you can do is…
Read MoreHer math problem? Chronic boredom
Here is how Clara, a 7th grader in Rhode Island, says she spends each day in math class: 50% Doodling, working ahead, doing homework for my other classes, or reading 25% Doing pointless work (that’s the “math”) 15% Spacing out 5% Talking 5% Listening “Sometimes I just watch the clock or think about the book…
Read MoreDon’t be boring
How often do you find yourself stuck listening to a boring presentation? What do you do when that happens? For a graduate class this fall, I had to watch a video of Drexel Prof. Gerry Stahl lecturing on his research into “Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning.” (You can watch it here.) This was a keynote speech at…
Read MoreWhat we can learn from a great speaker
A few minutes into Meredith Cochie’s presentation at the national student journalism conference in Orlando Saturday, a high school student behind me whispered to her friend: “I just want to bottle her up and bring her home.” Me too. I want to bottle her up and use her to train teachers. Cochie, a journalism professor…
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MARTHA RUSH 