Month: April 2023

Excerpted from “Poetry Pauses: Teaching With Poems to Elevate Student Writing in All Genres” by Brett Vogelsinger. Copyright © 2023 by Corwin Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sometimes I hear teachers and students talk about poetry as if the only purpose for writing a poem is to bare your soul, to go deep and dark; this illuminates another reason why poetry can be such an uncomfortable genre for teachers and students to approach in class. “I just feel funny asking kids to write poems because some of them feel awkward sharing that much of themselves with the world,” a teacher told me once.
This view, however, inappropriately confines what poetry can do. … Argument embedded in poems is nothing new. Consider the work of 19th-century Black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and her poem “Songs for the People”:
SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Let me make the songs for the people, Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry Wherever they are sung.
..

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
Community violence, racial injustice, school shootings. Students across America are faced with these realities every day, leaving educators to respond by adapting lesson plans or offer emergency support.
Some schools have added social workers, counselors, and other mental health resources to grapple with the toll community trauma is taking on students’ mental health. And in some districts, teachers and school leaders have created new student-focused programs in the wake of increases in gun violence and other traumatic incidents.
But educators say they remain overwhelmed and need more resources to support their students, especially following disrupted learning at the height of the COVID pandemic. Students have shared their own hopes for how adults might approach these conversations. If you are an educator or parent looking for resources on how to talk to students, we hope you find ..

Every weekday at 5280 High School in Denver starts the same way.
Students in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction gather on the steps of the school’s indoor auditorium to discuss a topic chosen by staff members. One recent morning, they talked about mental health and sobriety. A teenage boy dressed in tan corduroys, a black hoodie, and sneakers went first.
“I didn’t want to have, like, any emotion,” he said. “So I thought, like, the best way to, like, put it down would be to do more and more and more drugs.”
A classmate said she started doing drugs for fun and then got hooked. Another student said his addiction negatively impacts his mental health. A third announced an upcoming milestone.
“In, like, two days, I’ll be six months sober,” she said, as her classmates cheered.
The students attend Colorado’s only recovery high school — one of 43 nationwide. These schools are designed for students who are recovering from substance use disorder and might also be dealing with related m..

Adapted with permission from Stroupe, D. (2023). Growing and Sustaining Student-Centered Science Classrooms (p. 1-5). Harvard Education Press.
Teaching has always been a crucial and underappreciated profession across the world. Almost everyone spends some time in a school, and in those spaces, teachers play an important role in designing and facilitating opportunities for participation and learning. Many people fondly remember a favorite teacher and classroom or, conversely, might hope to forget a school that made them feel rejected. While society might collectively forget, those of us who spend time in schools know that teachers and administrators have a great responsibility as we shape the lives of children. By representing and upholding equitable communities and participatory structures that ensure powerful learning opportunities for children, especially those from marginalized communities, teachers and administrators can help change the world…
[Let’s peek] into the classrooms of..

With a year of working at In-N-Out Burger under her belt, high school senior Sarah Wiley would say she makes good money. But when she first started working, she wasn’t sure what to do with her paycheck. She had a feeling that it wasn’t a good idea to spend it all at once, but otherwise she was stumped. “I was like ‘How do I invest this money? And how do I make sure I’m saving enough?’” she said.
So when planning her senior schedule, she looked to her school’s personal finance class for guidance. It was the second year the course was offered at San Marcos High School in southern California. “I thought that it would be a class that would give me some great life skills for the future,” she said early in the semester. “I’ve already learned so much.”
Studies show that students are more likely to budget, save and manage their credit after they take a financial literacy class. Yet just under half of states require a personal finance course as a graduation requirement, and only one in four..