"When one teaches, two learn"
We have a great discussion going on ELT Professionals LinkedIN where teachers recommend songs for teaching. Some of them got me thinking about how I most often used songs in my teaching. Most often, I used songs to either introduce a topic but most often...
Every year, I make a very practical, specific resolution for my teaching. Last year, it was to explore and practice the possibilities of using video in the classroom. This year, it is one big, inspiring one that I hope other teachers will join in –...
It’s a quiet Sunday morning and I’ve spent the weekend so far both working on a new project and during that process, thinking hard and deep about “doing it well”. I put “doing it well” in quotes because this is primary, our presence day in...
I’ve always enjoyed teaching this module – Philosophy of Education, during my years educating teachers. Part of the module consisting of watching scenes from movies and discussing, debating what philosophy of education they represented. Here is a nice powerpoint outlining the major philosophies of education....
I’m sure you’ve heard of it unless you’ve been hiding in your classroom, overwhelmed. Teacher Kyle Schwartz asked her students to finish the sentence, “I wish my teacher knew ……” The answers are heart wrenching and more important than just what they reveal about their...
Imagine a classroom where there is no teaching only learning. Imagine a classroom where there is no leader only...
A bit of a reflective post today while I pack and then head off to TESOL Toronto. Looking forward to seeing many “teaching friends”. It’s put me in a contemplative mood, about my journey as an educator. About saying who we are as teachers and...
This year marks the 130th anniversary of John Milton Gregory’s influential (at its time) statement about what teaching and learning fundamentally is – The 7 Laws Of Teaching. Do you agree that they still apply to today’s classroom and schooling? Which are true and which have...
I’m still plugging away on my book, tentatively titled “School’s Out Forever” – a play on the famous cry of the immortal Alice Cooper, “School’s Out For Summer“. My idea is to think fresh, think anew and have a grasp that exceed’s my reach. To...
This story comes from my time teaching at Bloor and Bay, 5th floor, N.E tower – Language Connections International. I was teaching new immigrants to Canada part of the day, foreign students the other half. Small classrooms with one wall all windows facing busy Bloor...
The other night I watched an interesting news program profiling a doctor who writes out prescriptions for exercise to many of his patients. He writes out what they should do every day and like medicine, expects it to be done and completed just like we...
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. Differentiation I have thought about this long and hard. I’m not a big proponent of using “tech for tech’s...
Over the last 5 to 10 years, I’ve been developing new ideas about how we should be teaching in our classrooms. These ideas have changed as the possibilities and promises of educational technology have become reality. The most fundamental of these ideas are always...
Metaphors are powerful things for teachers. They are the very building blocks of thought and allow us to see what isn’t there, to connect on a higher level to hidden realities. Cynthia Ozick in her timeless essay, “Metaphor and Memory” talks of metaphor as...
Last week I watched the “Reinvent Learning” roundtable with Howard Reingold. As I walked and ran on my treadmill (got in a good 14 k), I listened to the pronouncements of all the experts about what is happening or should happen in education right now....
A poem I wrote based on Leonard Cohen’s famous “Go by brooks, my love.” See all my poetry on my poetry blog. If interested in using poetry in the classroom, this page will be valuable.
** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. The Freedom To Teach I haven’t done much with the #1 lists of late however I’m restarting my engine...
I’ve been spending a wonderful Christmas with family and friends in Canada over the holidays. Lots of activity, birthdays along with parties and the regular Christmas meetings and greetings. It got me really thinking about life and especially the glue that keeps all life together...
The one thing I have always wished about school – that it was a marketplace of ideas/learning where all in the community could come and go as they please. A doors open, windows blowing fresh air through policy. This is far from how it works....
One thing that I’ve concluded after a few decades in school systems is they operate with a profound distrust of students. Distrust that left on their own students would want to learn something, even choose to learn. It’s true. Even the most well intentioned teachers...
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