Rob Kriete, President of Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association
I remember talking to my mom about that and letting her know I wanted to be a teacher and the look on her face. It wasn’t that look of excitement. It was: “why would you choose to do something that is so hard, that pays so little, and has so little respect societally?”…
And I had to explain to her that I had to do it because it’s who I am, and teaching is important and that’s why I do it. And it matters. And so, that’s ultimately what led me here to become—and run for—union president. Because I believe that I want to make sure that every teacher gets that respect and has that ability to say, “Hey, I’m a teacher. I’m proud. Because what I do is very important for myself, my community, my school, and society overall.” – Rob Kriete
Rob Kriete spent his first 24 years in the classroom at the middle and high school levels. Last year, he appeared on the Teacher Voice podcast as a candidate for the presidency of HCTA; this year, he returns after one full year on the job. We sat down to discuss the learning curve of taking over the local for the 8th largest school district in the U.S.; what he is trying to accomplish moving forward this year; this past legislative session; why he became a teacher and so much more.
If you’d like to learn more about or join Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, you can click here. Thanks for listening and sharing with others, everyone!
The first guest post of 2019, Carol Cleaver’s words will undoubtedly be familiar to any of us who have been in the classroom. She shares part of the secret to her success as a teacher, and asks us to reflect on our own practice and what guiding directive(s) we may employ with our students. Feel free to comment below, on the Teacher Voice Facebook page, or on Twitter.
What Is the Guiding Directive for Your Classroom?
It’s Important
After 14 years of teaching, classroom management isn’t a huge problem for me- but of course, I didn’t start out so capably. I’ve always credited my successes in behavior management to a relentless commitment to my guiding directive. Early on, I chose one simple phrase that would guide every action that happens in my classroom. Creating your own guiding directive, and being consistent about it, is one of the best possible ways to ensure a well-managed classroom.
My first year of teaching, I landed in an 8th grade Science Classroom. Anyone who has taught middle school is aware of the constant trials and tribulations that beset this population of students. At no other time in their lives will they care so much about the way they are perceived by their peers. They will do almost anything to curry favor with popular kids, and at the same time, blend into the crowd. The focus on social status above all else often contributes to a lot of negative behaviors- gossip, name calling, showing off. I wanted to quell the stress I saw on the hallways of our school; but didn’t want to put off the kids by constant nagging and issuing judgment either.
I decided to employ a rule that I had learned in Sunday School. The rules for speaking are this: “Is it Kind? Is it Necessary? Is it True? It must be all three things, or you may not say it.”
I made myself a little poster, and carried it into my classroom. I spent a few minutes with each class period going over the rule. I spent the next week or so correcting them every time they got out of line. “Was that necessary?” or “That wasn’t kind, was it?” I committed to it, and came back to it, many times each day. I made them repeat the rule out loud after me. Several times. The rule applied to everyone, and was non-negotiable.
In a few weeks, something amazing began to happen. Students started correcting each other. I began to overhear phrases like “was that kind? Was it necessary?” from my students in their desks. I didn’t have to say anything- they were catching themselves. Nobody took it personally. They all knew that was the rule, and that it absolutely must be followed in my classroom. The “offender” would normally back track from what they were saying, without even arguing the point. On the rare occasion the point is argued, other students in the class will say to them “even if it is true- it has to be all three. You can’t say it unless it is also kind and necessary!”
And then the real payoff came. I began to realize that because of my classroom rule, I had created an area free of gossip and drama. Students knew they could depend upon that. Anytime they came into my room with some bit of news like “did you hear about that fight?” or “you won’t believe what this other teacher did” they were immediately cut off with a reminder “is it kind or necessary for you to interrupt class with this? You must follow the rules for speaking in this classroom.” And they did.
Students began to relax in my classroom. They began to take risks and grow in confidence, because they knew that any type of negative talk would not be tolerated. Students also knew that I was someone who meant what I said, because I wouldn’t say something that wasn’t true. If they asked me a hard question, they knew I would tell them the truth.
Over the years I have been teaching, I have used this rule as my guiding directive for every single class I teach. I have taught grades 6-12, and have found that this rule works for all age groups. I don’t know if it’s because the rule is so good, or if I am so committed to it, but it works. Some of the kids from that first year are past college now, and have found me to let me know that they “still remember the rules for speaking.”
What are you “famous” for to your students? What is it that you do that your students can depend upon, and will remember?
Thanks for reading, everyone! If you are an educator and would like to write a guest post for the Teacher Voice blog, feel free to message me through the Contact feature or send me an email directly to 1teachervoice@gmail.com
The latest guest post on Teacher Voice is written by Dr. Joel W. Gingery, PharmD. He is a retired clinical pharmacist who has since gone on to become a public education advocate. He is a current member of the St. Petersburg NAACP Education Committee, which focuses on economic and educational development in south St. Pete within Pinellas County.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. – Plutarch
Imagine: You’re in New York City on the fifth floor of the The Museum of Modern Art, looking at Le Domoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso.Picasso is a Spanish artist, but he’s in Paris when he paints this. The title translates to ‘The Young Ladies of Avignon’, which refers to a street that’s not in France but is in Barcelona and associated with prostitution. What we’re looking at is a brothel.
Le Domoiselles d’Avignon – Pablo Picasso
Les Domoiselles d’Avignon is one of the monumental works in the genesis of modern art. The painting, almost 8 ft x 8 ft square, depicts five naked prostitutes in a brothel; two of them push aside curtains around the space where the other women strike seductive and erotic poses—but their figures are composed of flat, splintered planes rather than rounded volumes, their eyes are lopsided or staring or asymmetrical, and the two women at the right have threatening masks for heads. The space, too, which should recede, comes forward in jagged shards, like broken glass. In the still life at the bottom, a piece of melon slices the air like a scythe.
In its brutal treatment of the body and in its clashes of color and style, Les Domoiselles d’Avignon marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective.
For many art historians, this painting is seen as a break with 500 years of European painting that begins with the Renaissance. It is a reaction to the oppressiveness with which post-Renaissance culture, its mannerisms, the Baroque neoclassicism, the academies of the nineteenth century, all weighed on the contemporary artist. This painting is the foundation on which Cubism is built.
Pablo Picasso – Self Portrait – 1907
Picasso was one of the greatest and most influential artists of the twentieth century. He is the inventor of collage, but, most of all, he is associated, along with Georges Braque, with pioneering cubism. Considered radical in his work, he made use of any and every medium.
His total artistic output has been estimated at 50,000 separate works: 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings; and multiple other works, including tapestries and rugs. Picasso continues to be revered for his technical mastery, visionary creativity and profound empathy.
Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain, into a middle class family. His father was a painter and art teacher who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. Picasso expressed his artistic talents early. At age 16 he was admitted to the most prestigious art school in Spain. But he detested the formal training, and, shortly after arriving, he left the school to make his way on his own.Picasso would have never become the creative visionary that he became by continuing in formal schooling. The only way for him to become ‘Picasso’ was out of school.
The Purpose of Education
In 1911, about the same time Picasso painted Le Domoiselles, Fredrick Winslow Taylor stated in his book “Principles of Scientific Management” that the duty of enforcing standards of work rests “with management alone.” This attitude still permeates most of our organizations, whether we realize it or not.
Taylor felt that only management had the right and ability to see the big picture and make decisions. This “command and control” mentality proved more effective when businesses were organized as hierarchies. When the work is routine and only requires obedience, compliance, and perseverance, it is the type of work that is easily automated.
In today’s inter-connected, networked enterprise, everyone has to see their portion of the system and make appropriate decisions of their own. Their work increasingly deals with more complex tasks that require creativity, curiosity, empathy, humor, and passion; the type of work that is difficult to automate and humans are good at.
A new skill set and mindset is required. Employees need to learn how to be more adaptable, courageous, and resilient, as well as how to connect, collaborate, influence and inspire others. More importantly, a sense of curiosity and thirst for learning and innovation is essential.
Unfortunately, many of our educational institutions are not sufficiently preparing learners for this new world of work; of shifting learner attitudes and mindsets from passive entitlement to active accountability.
To compound the situation, in our naivete’, we supported accountability initiatives that demand standardization. We asked: “How can we hold schools, teachers, students, parents, etc., accountable, so they’ll give kids the education we want them to get?”
The result has been a rigid, technocratic, highly systematized and numbers-driven approach to reform, built on big new bureaucracies, costing millions to grind out and analyze countless billions of data points whose connection to children’s real educational success is tenuous at best.
Designed as they are to make the public education system dysfunctional, is it any wonder that these accountability systems fail? They are impersonal and unresponsive to the real needs of real people. People are curious, interested creatures, who posses a natural love of learning; who desire to internalize the knowledge, customs and values that surround them.
These evolved tendencies for people to be curious, interested, and seek coherence of knowledge, would seem to be resources to be cultivated and harnessed by educators as they guide learning and development.
Too often, however, educators introduce external controls, close supervision and monitoring, that create distrustful learning environments. Essentially, they reflect external pressures on teachers that motivation is better shaped by external reinforcement than by facilitating students’ inherent interest in learning. Under such controlling conditions, however, the feelings of joy, enthusiasm, and interest that once accompanied learning are frequently replaced by feelings of anxiety, boredom, or alienation. They create the self fulfilling prophesy so evident in many classrooms, whereby students no longer are interested in what is taught, and teachers must externally control students to “make” learning occur.
America needs to rethink what it really wants from schools.
Answering this question takes creativity and insight, and courage, because answering requires us to rethink who we are and what it means to be human.
If we are truly passionate about an education system that supports the development of a learning environment in which the learner can grow into his or her highest future potential, we need to challenge ourselves to explore the reality of our situation and follow through with the appropriate action.
Half a century ago James Baldwin warned against this giving in to the tendency to minimize its importance: “This collision between one’s image of oneself and what one actually is is always very painful and there are two things you can do about it, you can meet the collision head-on and try and become what you really are or you can retreat and try to remain what you thought you were, which is a fantasy, in which you will certainly perish.”
Education is by and for the people. People whose purposes in life can’t be standardized or captured in numbers and technocratic systems. People who are embedded in a bewildering variety of relationships and communities that shape who they are and what their lives mean. People who cannot be the one-size-fits-all interchangeable cogs that our technocratic, educational accountability systems need them to be to function.
Thanks for reading, everyone. As always, if you’d like to be a guest contributor to the Teacher Voice project (or discuss education issues on the podcast), please email me at 1teachervoice@gmail.com.
This edition of the podcast is an interview with high school science teacher, Brandon Haught, who is a founding board member and communications director for Florida Citizens for Science, a grassroots organization of concerned science education stakeholders that began in 2006.
During our conversation, we talk about last year’s textbook challenge bill, HB989, which has since become law, how it’s already been used in Nassau county, as well as legislation that is moving through both the House and Senate this session. All concerned education advocates should be paying attention to HB825 and its Senate companion SB966, which both deal with “controversial theories and concepts.” The other bills we discuss concern “textbook adoption” and are known as HB827 and SB1644 respectively.
If you’d like to get involved, please reach out to your legislators and tell them to vote no on these bills. And be sure to check out the good work being done by Brandon and the rest of the Florida Citizens for Science organization.
On the heels of my previous post, “Cooking the Books,” another teacher from elsewhere in Florida sent along the piece you will read below. While I only focused on exams in the last post, they are only one small cog in the graduation rate manipulation machine. The problems mentioned in this teacher’s post areREAL.
I am not a fan of “credit recovery” efforts in my school district. I think they are burdensome to teachers who are already overworked and underpaid. They provide students who choose to underperform in class a way out, which is punitive to those students who work hard all school year. Our “credit recovery” efforts in my district also do not align completely with state statute because our district is taking advantage of the statute’s ambiguity.
In my central Florida district, if a secondary student receives a D or an F for a school quarter they are given a “credit recovery” packet. This “credit recovery” packet is given to students every, single, 9 weeks. The packet is usually designed by the teacher of whichever core subject was failed and given to the student to complete. Upon the completion of the packet, the teacher is to give that student a “C”. There is no universal packet because it will vary by teacher, subject, grade level, and school. A student who is taking a 6th grade social studies class at School A will get a very different packet to the 6th grader taking social studies at School B.
I want you to imagine that you’re a teacher and you have lovingly prepared engaging lessons using multiple teaching techniques that cater to a variety of learning styles, but also that meet state standards. You arrive to work early on a daily basis in order to make sure your room is set up properly, get your copies made, ensure your technology is working properly, maybe grade some papers, and enjoy a few quiet sips of coffee. However, every day little Bobby doesn’t participate in the lesson or complete any activities.
Little Bobby doesn’t even bother to put his name on any of the papers. All little Bobby seems to do is sleep or play on his phone. As a teacher, you try to counsel him one-on-one to encourage him. Nothing changes. You then call home on several occasions. Nothing changes. You go to guidance, a more seasoned educator, a coach, your administration, ESE teachers, the school psychologist, and check to see if little Bobby has an IEP/504 to ensure you are following all of his accommodations (if any). You even provide him missing assignments weekly for him to make up. Still nothing changes.
Nine weeks go by and report cards are getting ready to come out. Little Bobby has a 0% F in your class. All your documentation for every parent communication, accommodation, and effort you’ve put in to trying to help this particular student is ready. Then you get told by your administration that you now have to design him a “credit recovery” packet that goes over everything you did in the previous 9 weeks. He is given 2-3 weeks to complete it, and upon completion you must give him a 75% for the 9 weeks. Little Bobby repeats this same behavior every 9 weeks. This is a student who is clearly not proficient in the subject matter but because of the system, he is still going to get pushed through.
The Florida statute 1003.413(2)(d) states “credit recovery” should be “…competency based and offered through innovative delivery systems, including computer-assisted instruction.” A packet is not innovative nor is it computer-assisted instruction. The intention was to use an online platform we lovingly call E2020, which provides content for core curriculum, elective, advanced placement, career and technical courses, and “credit recovery”. It’s supposed to be for a semester. This program alleviates the burden of teachers having to create and grade “credit recovery” packets on top of our already burdensome workload. But the programs also requires another prep, which means either the district will need to pay a teacher to give up their planning period or hire another teacher to teach those E2020 courses. As it stands, having teachers create the packets puts the burden solely on them and there’s no accountability as to whether or not the packets actually meet the standards.
Kids are not dumb, and when kids learn how to work the system to their advantage they will do it. I have had these students throughout my career as an educator who have stated there is no reason for them to work in class because they know they will get “credit recovery” and get moved along. They do not have the impetus to do otherwise.
However, even when given a “credit recovery” packet there are still kids who do not complete the packets. I think at my school we had over 160 students receive a “credit recovery” packet in one of the four core class (Social Studies, ELA, Science, and Math) during the first quarter of this school year. Only 40 students turned in a completed “credit recovery” packet. I often hear how “Kids are kids, and they make mistakes” when I discuss this issue with people outside of education. They’re right…kids make mistakes all the time. But the best way to learn from our mistakes is to receive a natural consequence. A natural consequence for not doing your work in class is to fail that class, at least for the quarter. In the hope, that the student will get their act together.
In my opinion, we should allow the students one opportunity for a “credit recovery” packet from the teacher. If the student fails to meet the requirements of the packet, then that student’s grade needs to stand. If that student’s performance still leaves something to be desired and they have a “D” or an “F” for the semester, they should be provided opportunity for E2020. If they fail E2020 and still continue with their lackluster performance they need to fail the course. They need to go to summer school or repeat the course the following year. We need to prepare them for college or the workforce. By allowing a student to do nothing all school year and give them multiple opportunities to make up their grade to a “C” is not a reflection of reality. If you fail a course in college there is no “credit recovery”. If you fail to finish a task given to you by your employer, you could be fired. There has to be a better way, and what we have now isn’t it.
Thanks for reading, everyone. The Teacher Voice project is always looking for guest authors, whether anonymous or not; I have always envisioned this blog and podcast to be a diverse and collaborative endeavor. If you’d like to contribute and share your “teacher voice” (and you don’t have to be a teacher, any education advocate is welcome to submit pieces), please email me at 1teachervoice@gmail.com
This entry is the second guest post on Teacher Voice. Any other teachers want to share their perspectives on education issues? Please email 1teachervoice@gmail.com. As today’s guest blogger, Kimberly-Jo Foster’s friend says, “unite and fight.”
Fight for Public Education
By Kimberly-Jo Foster
Today, many of my co-workers and myself are wearing red in support of Deyshia Hargrave. For any readers who are unaware, Deyshia Hargrave is a middle school ELA teacher in Louisiana who was recently arrested after speaking at a school board meeting. You can read more about that here. No one in that room did anything to help her. We teach our students and children how to identify bullies, victims, and bystanders in similar situations, but as adults we handle those situations just as poorly. In a recent interview, the Superintendent said he failed to speak up when he should have. A board member even stated after the arrest that is how women in Vermilion Parish are treated.
Ms. Hargrave thought it was pertinent to address the Superintendent’s raise because his contract with a raise and car were up for a vote, and it was relevant. The superintendent in Vermilion Parish was getting a $30,000+ raise with a car that would have gas and maintenance provided by the school district. Whereas, Vermilion Parish teachers have a starting salary of about $39,548 and haven’t had a raise in 10 years. On top of which, they have class sizes that are outrageously large which make teaching an even more monumental task.
Ms. Hargrave was not rude, out of order, or speaking out of turn. She did not resist arrest. The only moment of “resistance” we see in the video is Ms. Hargrave speaking directly to a board member asking “Is it against policy to stand?” The police officer tries to grab her arm, and she says “Sir, do not”. She has every right to not be touched. In that moment, she was not under arrest and after that she did leave without causing a scene. Within under two minutes of leaving the room, we hear that she is being arrested and see her on the ground. Ms. Hargrave, who is substantially shorter than the deputy, is having a difficult time getting to her feet and moving at the pace of the officer as she is taken out of the building in handcuffs.
This event speaks to two things in my mind: the poor treatment of women in this country and the attacks on public education. In this country, particularly here in Florida, public education is under constant attack in favor privatization and for-profit charters. Ms. Hargrave is an example of an educator speaking out about how unfair the divide is between teachers, top administrators, and policy makers. We are doing the most work for very little pay in comparison to those who are no longer on the front lines educating students. Educators rarely get credit for the successes we have in the classrooms, but all the failures get laid out at our feet. It is important that as educators, parents, and citizens that you attend public school board meetings. Listen to what is going on in your school district regardless of whether or not you have a student enrolled in a public school. Pay attention to legislation that impacts education at a national and state level. Don’t forget to vote in national, state, and local elections. If we do not unite together as educators and community members to save our public schools more abuses like this will occur, and it will further disenfranchise groups of already struggling students. Abraham Lincoln once said “A house divided against itself cannot stand”, and it’s time we all stood together to fight for public education.
About 100 TOK Essay rough drafts, averaging 5 pages each.
This past week I joined in solidarity with the vast majority of teachers in Hillsborough County Public Schools who chose to “work to contract.” For all five days we arrived to work at our appointed time and left when our day was over. Like many–if not most–Americans in the workforce, we left our work in the building and went home to spend time with our family and friends.
It may have been the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in 14 years as a teacher.
Don’t get me wrong, going home each day and being able to spend time with two of my favorite people ever–my wife and my mother, who was in town for Thanksgiving–was incredible. We talked, we laughed, we ate delicious home-cooked meals, we watched shows together and just generally enjoyed each other’s presence and company.
But it was difficult because I hadn’t truly realized how plugged in I am to school virtually all the time. Whether it’s working on school stuff for my IB students, reading and doing research on education issues, advocating for our profession, representing HCTA, lining up podcast guests, communicating with elected officials, or writing posts for Teacher Voice, I clearly sleep, breathe, and eat education.
And I love it.
I also hate it in another sense, though. On the very first day of WTC I came home, put down my bag, said hello to my mother, and then immediately opened my laptop to send an email I thought about on my drive home. These habits have become so ingrained that I didn’t realize I was breaking my attempt to work to contract until my wife asked me what I was doing. I am glad she said something, because it immediately put me in a different frame of mind. I closed the laptop and walked away.
The rest of the week went well and I managed to keep my promise. I worked only the time I was scheduled. I enjoyed spending time with my colleagues before school when we picketed and walked in together every morning. I also had to prioritize my tasks in order to maximize my productivity. This was particularly difficult for me because when my students or coworkers ask me to help them in any endeavor I drop whatever I’m doing to answer the call. And while I still did this, I could see things starting to pile up.
Take the Theory of Knowledge Essay rough drafts I received on Monday. I wanted to try and read them by the end of the week. I should have realized how nearly impossible that goal was, but it motivated me to read and comment on at least a few while I could. But the more immediate tasks always came first. I had to teach. I had to write letters of recommendation that had imminent deadlines. I had to help get a necessary computer program up and running. I had to_____________.
And if you’re a teacher, too, you know that list of “I had to’s” is probably a mile long.
In the end, I feel like I was able to reclaim more of my personal life. I feel a little more rested, a little more balanced. I will probably try to work to contract as much as I can for the rest of my career, to be honest. But I also know there will be times when I have too much work to be done and have to bring it home.
The vast majority of teachers always do.
Because we know what’s at stake is too important: our kids and our future.
Clearly this is NOT an HCPS for-profit charter school application
On the heels of another four charter schools being approved this past Tuesday, and as a rebuttal to the trope the school board members constantly offer the public, I recorded this brief rant on the massive proliferation of for-profit charter operators in Hillsborough County Public Schools.
If you are a concerned citizen and taxpayer, please listen and share.
And you know that ribbon-cutting ceremony for SLAM that Susan Valdes attended and then later approved two new SLAM schools? The management company, Academica, and its CEO, each contributed $1,000 to her reelection campaign last year on that May 25th date I mention in the podcast.
Want to know who else is getting paid what by any of these for-profit charter operators? Visit here.
Thanks for listening, everyone. Have an awesome weekend!
P.S. – Pat Hall, if you ever happen to see/listen to this podcast, I’d love to interview you so we can have a more robust conversation about this situation!
A coworker came up to me today and asked me about this project. The colleague thanked me and said that I had courage for speaking up about issues. I asked the teacher to record a podcast in the coming weeks.
And now I’m asking you. If you listen to this message or even read your words, I need your help. I think the Teacher Voice has a lot of potential. There are 190,000 teachers working in Florida and thousands of others working in education and advocating for our children.
Are you one of those people? Do you want to write or talk about our kids and our future? If so please message the Facebook page, send an email to 1teachervoice@gmail.com, or use the contact page here on the website.
Thank you for your interest. Please share with other education stakeholders in Florida so we can build this into a platform I believe it has the potential to become.
I hope to hear from you and look forward to your guest post or forthcoming discussion on a podcast.
The test driven accountability movement has failed. There is a better way…
Since the summer of 1998 when I first moved to Florida, our state has been possessed by the notion of testing and accountability. Jeb Bush based much of his gubernatorial campaign on the idea that public schools were in need of reform, and that by assigning grades to teachers, schools and districts, they would foster a new era of accountability.
The FCAT came and went, creating much consternation at every level in the K12 sector. Kids were–and still are–stressed out by all the high-stakes testing; teachers felt–and still feel–micromanaged and betrayed by our elected officials who claim to know what’s best for our students, despite the fact that they have had no classroom experience and little to no input from the professionals who serve our children every day.
But here’s the thing: I get it. I get where they’re coming from. I think many teachers do try to understand our legislators’ motives, because we all want what’s best for our kids, and that begins with holding our students to high expectations and measuring them against standards. The Legislature wants the same from us, but it has largely gone about it the wrong way. Testing kids in the way that we do is no good for their academic welfare, let alone their well-being.
If we look at the top two education systems in the world, Finland and South Korea, they both have similar approaches. There is very little–if any–standardized testing. Students are given multiple pathways to demonstrate mastery of their subjects, much of which is evaluated holistically through student portfolios that capture the big picture of the child’s learning. It’s a window into how the student’s mind works, how he or she is learning to think critically about the world and be engaged with it in a meaningful way. Standardized testing, by contrast, essentially tells us whether or not a student is good at taking a test relative to other children taking the same assessment.
The teachers in these systems are also radically different. In those countries, there is significant cultural esteem to being a teacher. They are revered precisely because the future generation and the fate of the entire nation have been placed in their hands to shape for the better. Teachers are also culled from the university’s top graduates, often ranking in the top two percent of their respective graduating classes. These people could be doctors or engineers, but they are handpicked to be teachers. Finally, they are seen as consummate professionals who need no significant oversight from outside forces.
While a valid critique of these systems’ successes may hinge on their cultural homogeneity, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to adopt a similar path here in the Sunshine State or the entire U.S. We need to treat kids like human beings again, not cogs in a machine to churn out test results. Every teacher needs to forge ahead and start building a more humane education system. It begins with us, the professionals in the classroom, and it ends with those who matter most–our kids.
Teacher Voice is seeking guests to either write short posts (500 word limit) about current education issues or to discuss them in person for the biweekly podcast. Interested? Fill in the form on the Contact page or email directly at 1teachervoice@gmail.com
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