I was talking to good friend of mine on the challenges of homeschooling. He is the father of a 2 and a 4-year-old, respectively, and he spoke about the challenges of working while teaching and playing with his kids all hours of the day due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many parents, he’s used to … More Quarantined Fathering
This post marks the second part in a series of post designed to explore history instruction to assist history teachers at teaching history in more culturally inclusive, balanced, and responsive ways. You can read part one here. As an adolescent, history was nothing more than dates, events, people and places I saw in books. It … More Teaching History Part 2: Purpose
When you ask a teacher about lunch duty, they give one of two answers… either they think it’s cool or they hate it. Some teachers hate lunch duty for legit reasons. One reason is that their colleagues ditch it and their left with one or two less adults. Another reason is because there is little … More Lunch Duty
I waited to pen this post because much of the world was writing on Kobe immediately after his death. But I do believe there are some lessons that educators can impart on their students from Kobe’s life. I arrived at Wawa shortly after 2 in the afternoon to get gas on Sunday January 26, … More Lessons from a Lost Life
Not to toot my own horn (although I clearly aim), but I think that I do a great job when facilitating a professional development session; that’s what the attendees say on the evaluations. After each PD I facilitate, I always run down what worked and what didn’t work to improve for the next session I … More Ingredients of a Great PD
Teaching afterschool is an awesome opportunity for any educator. You and your students get to see each other in a different light. Also, you have the opportunity to provide students with opportunities to grow and mature in a way that can help them improve as students. Afterschool teaching also gives you an opportunity to improve as an educator. Just make sure if you decide to teach afterschool that you do it for the right reasons. … More The Afterschool Program
Many educators, particularly school leaders love to use data to inform teacher instruction. The data movement is a popular one; particularly in the age of school reform. Decisions about curriculum, instruction, and assessment tend to be shaped and determined by data. Well, what is the data? Generally, the data consist of student test scores from … More Doing Data Mindfully
Schools should teach students how to be responsible and accountable. However, some of the lessons that practitioners come up with aren’t very good. I remember during my last year teaching how the administration changed up the detention model. Originally, if a student received a detention, they had to sit for at least one hour. Depending … More Doing Responsibility Responsibly
I am the director of an after-school and summer program for my school district. We house our program in classrooms in a specified area of the building. During the school day, teachers occupy those rooms. Teachers can be a fickle and possessive group of people. If you give a teacher something, don’t expect it back. … More You Don’t Own Your Classroom
You cannot effectively serve urban students and engage with urban families if you are unwilling to go where they live. I don’t mean that you have to do a house visit for every student that you teach. However, you should know the neighborhoods where your students live and you should attempt to walk the streets … More A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
I recently read a thread on Twitter regarding two Black children and their discomfort with their teacher’s usage of the N-word during a lesson. Long story short, a White teacher, in a room of mostly White students, in an attempt to teach about the N-word (the lesson objective was neither directly stated or implied in … More On Teaching The N-Word
I've had the career affirming task of talking teachers off the ledge who found themselves unpopular with their students. Personally, I’ve had some unpopular moments. My students knew I didn’t care if I was popular or not – I told them so. I told them that my responsibility was to prepare them to be comfortable … More When My Students Don’t Like Me
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone
Where Race and Sport Intersect at the Point of Commentary
A blog on race, equity, and urban education
... A Strong Rhyme to Step To
"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."
Navigating Inner City Ministry in Real Time
Urban Education Mixtape 