5-6 class periods, 25-35 students per class, 2-3 different preps, 5 days a week. That’s the typical schedule for an American high school teacher, and as I have noted before, it doesn’t allow much time for professional development, reflection, or even creative preparation, let alone absence. Just staying on the treadmill – keeping up with…
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Too exhausted for creativity?
I don’t know anyone who became a teacher so that they could lecture from a script or PowerPoint, grade multiple-choice tests or subject themselves and their students to a series of rote lessons. And yet, we too often default to these boredom-inducing strategies under the pressure of our daily workload. (Worse yet, that is exactly…
Read MoreThe view from the other side
Last week, I wrote about my eagerness to read my students’ essays on how to improve American K-12 education. Forty essays in, and I’m exhausted but not disappointed. A few of their ideas are thinly researched or ill-conceived, but most put a lot of thought and evidence into their proposals. About half of my students…
Read MoreAny questions??
If we want our kids to become “lifelong learners,” one of the most important skills we can teach them is how to ask questions. Once you leave your formal education, the world isn’t going to spoon feed you information anymore. You actually have to find your own answers, whether it’s “Where is the bathroom?” or…
Read More‘Just challenging enough’
One of the great mysteries of teaching is how to find the right level of challenge for your students. Ask too little, and they are bored senseless. Ask too much, and they will give up. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky became famous for identifying the “zone of proximal development,” which is education-speak for “teach them something…
Read MoreNew strategies can be tough
The authors of Make it Stick (Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel) warned me that students wouldn’t necessarily appreciate better learning strategies. They were right. Using their research-based methodology, I have been giving my AP Macroeconomics students challenging quizzes at the start of class every day, to force them to practice retrieving their new knowledge…
Read MoreWe must help kids overcome the opportunity gap
The teenagers in our classes may not realize it, but they are on the verge of making one of the most important decisions of their lives: How will they develop their “human capital”? Our challenge is to make sure they understand how critical this is — and to help them make the best decisions possible.…
Read MoreIt’s important to share that you’re not perfect
It’s hard to really remember what it was like to be a preteen or teenager. It’s even harder to imagine being one today. The drama, the pressure, the energy that goes into social media. We wish they could just set it aside and focus on what’s important, i.e. academics. But if we want to engage…
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…
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MARTHA RUSH 