General

Walk into ten different classrooms in the same building and you will feel ten different atmospheres before a single word is spoken. Culture is built, not assumed Classroom culture does not happen by accident. It is not the natural byproduct of a teacher's personality or good intentions. It is constructed, intentionally and repeatedly, through the procedures, routines, and expectations you put in place from the very first day. The teacher who walks in assuming culture will sim

Dear First-Year Me, You are about to walk into a classroom that will ask more of you than you currently know how to give. Here is what I would tell you now, if I could. You do not have to learn it all at once Forcing yourself to learn everything immediately will only frustrate you. Pick one or two things to learn well this year. The learning management system. The gradebook. The online textbook. Google Drive. Whatever feels most essential right now. Next year will give you sp

The phone call you do not want to make. The meeting you are already dreading before it starts. Every teacher knows this feeling. Two kinds of hard conversations There are really two categories of difficult parent conversations. The first is the one a parent initiates, usually upset, sometimes defensive, occasionally unprofessional. The second is the one we have to initiate ourselves, delivering news about behavior, grades, or concerns that we know will not be well received. B

"Yes." "Okay." "Sure." At one time, that was considered the diplomatic thing to say. Always. No matter what. The pressure to always say yes... Even when tired, fatigued, irritable, or just not feeling well. Even when all we needed was a moment to breathe. Asking for that moment, just ten or fifteen minutes of uninterrupted time, has somehow been made to feel selfish, as though we are thinking only of ourselves when really we are just trying to remain whole enough to keep show

If you think teaching is simply about delivering content, this post is for you. What nobody tells you before you step into the classroom Teacher preparation programs do their best. But there is a version of this profession that does not show up in any textbook, any simulation, or any carefully constructed classroom scenario. It only shows up when you are standing in front of thirty young human beings who each brought their entire lives through your door that morning. That is

This profession has a storytelling problem. We tell the story of teaching the way we wish it were, not the way it actually is. It starts before we even get in the classroom In undergraduate teacher preparation programs, we create classroom management plans as assignments. We work through carefully constructed scenarios designed to prepare us for the realities ahead. And those scenarios are well-intentioned. But even the most challenging ones can pale in comparison to what man

Every year, without fail, there is a student — or a group of students — who changes something in me. What growth actually looks like It does not always feel like growth in the moment. Sometimes it feels like frustration. Sometimes it feels like being caught off guard by a perspective you had not considered. Sometimes it feels like being pushed just past the edge of your comfort zone by a fourteen-year-old who has no idea they are doing it. But looking back at the end of the y

This past year was not my finest in every moment. And I think it is important to say that out loud. The honest truth Nearly twenty years in this profession and I still have moments I am not proud of. Moments where I was short with people who deserved better from me. Moments where I withdrew when I should have leaned in. Moments where I handled something poorly and knew it even as it was happening. Teaching does not make us immune to being human. If anything, the pressure of t

My confession... I clock out of work no later than 3:15pm every single day. I also clock in every morning by 6:30, sometimes earlier. Up until about December of this school year, I was going in on weekends too. When I leave the building, I do not always actually leave. Most evenings I am still working from home. Grading. Planning. Responding to emails. For me it is mostly relaxing, mostly. When it stops feeling relaxing, I step away. But the line between work and rest is some

The school year ends. The noise fades. And then the real work begins. More than looking back Reflection is not just a professional exercise. It is not a box to check on an evaluation form or a prompt to answer in a faculty meeting. True reflection goes deeper than that. It asks hard questions and sits with uncomfortable answers. It requires us to be honest about where we succeeded, where we fell short, and where we flat-out failed. And it is some of the most important work a

June is here, and somehow the pressure didn't leave with the students. The guilt is real - no matter what you're doing Some teachers spend the summer planning. Some spend it resting. Some are working a second job or teaching summer school. Some are doing all three before noon on a Tuesday. And somehow, nearly all of us find a way to feel guilty about it. The teacher who planned all summer wonders if she should have rested. The teacher who rested wonders if she should have pla

A new series from Teaching: The Real - coming this Saturday... Pull up a chair. I've been saving you a seat. Here's what this is... This summer, I'm doing something I've been wanting to do for a while. Starting Saturday, May 30, I'm launching a brand new blog series right here on Teaching: The Real. It's called Real Talk @ The Summer Table, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Honest conversations about teaching, learning, growing, and surviving this profession with your pas

It's been a week since the last bell rang. I'm still thinking about it... I almost made it. I held it together through first period. During second period, I could feel it building, that particular ache that only comes in May, in 8th grade, when you realize you're not just saying goodbye to a school year. You're saying goodbye to them. For good. They don't come back next fall. They leave the grade. They leave the building. They leave you. And then one class looked at me, and I

It Starts With You Part 3 of 3| Teaching: The Real Self-Care Series Let me be honest with you. For a long time, I didn't notice. Not because no one was paying attention, but because I wasn't paying attention. To myself. I was so locked into the work, the students, the next unit, the next meeting, the next thing that needed me, that I just… kept going. Head down. Full speed. Didn't stop long enough to check the gauge. And then one day the gauge was empty. And I was surprised.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education. I have a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction. I have another Master's in Instructional Design. And I still had to figure it out the hard way. That is not a complaint. It is a confession. If you have ever sat in a professional development session or collaborative meeting nodding along while internally thinking I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, this post is for you. The Kid in the Room When the language

I finished a novel late last night... Sandra Brown's latest release. In my lifetime, I have read A LOT of books. If I had to assign a number, I'd never be able to. My love - no, my passion - for reading began as a pre-teen with Ann M. Martin's The Babysitter's Club series, Christopher Pike's mystery-thrillers, and Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley High teen dramas. In all of the many novels I have read, I have never seen a message like the one on the last page before the back co

Self-Care Doesn't Look Like What They Sold You Part 2 of 3 | Teaching: The Real Self-Care Series The wellness industry made a fortune off teachers. And I'm not here for it. Somewhere between the scented candles, the overpriced bath bombs, and the "treat yourself" culture, self-care got hijacked. It became something you had to purchase, plan, and post about. A massage. A girls' trip. A weekend retreat. A skincare regimen that costs more than your classroom supply budget. And i

The Guilt Is Killing You Part 1 of 3 | Teaching: The Real Self-Care Series I was scrolling through Facebook when a post on one of the Middle School ELA groups I follow brought me up short. A second-year teacher had posted something I've heard — and felt — in a hundred different ways over twenty years in this profession. She was tired. Not regular tired. The kind of tired that lives in your bones. And she was struggling to find time to take care of herself. I wanted to reach t

I am a teacher who loves writing just as much as she loves teaching, if not — dare I say it — more. I share that confession without apology, because I think it matters. It matters for my students to see that their teacher is not just an instructor of writing — she is a writer. And writers write. Not just lesson plans and sub notes and parent emails. Writers write because something inside of them will not stay quiet until the words find their way out. That is exactly what happ

There's a moment every ELA teacher lives for — that shift when students stop studying a concept and start living it. In Unit 5: The Art of Rhetoric, that moment didn't just happen in Room 509. It showed up in my inbox. With a subject line. And a very professional closing. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What We Studied Unit 5 was built around one essential question: How do speakers and writers use language to move people to think, feel, and act? To answer that, we didn't jus