University training prepares educators for a lot of scenarios on the job. But what it doesn’t prepare them for is the inevitable grief that comes with it.

While I believe that assessment data and growth measures matter and that families have a right to this information, it’s the information educators are not required to share that troubles me most.

In an effort to amplify our students' voices, we decided to create authentic resources that would highlight the wide range of celebrations and traditions that are important to them.

My FSL classroom is rarely quiet. There’s laughter, music, performance, and sometimes a bit of chaos, but it’s the productive kind. On poetry unit days, students sit congregated in groups, and they transform the space into a “scène de slam.”

As a third-grade teacher, I’ve dealt with my fair share of reluctant writers. But when faced with one particularly resistant student, I decided it was time to step out of my comfort zone.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that rules without relationships lead to rebellion. Yet today, relationships with students seem to be feared instead of embraced. Over the years, quite by accident, I have discovered that this precept from days gone by is critical to classroom rules and to learning itself. Relationships are an essential part of learning, especially relationships between teachers and students.

Teaching is a great responsibility. I teach English and believe that the ability to communicate, at a personal and societal level, is what builds strong communities and ensures ownership over one’s future. Thus, it’s important that we teachers spend a lot of time on our craft—deliberating the best ways to teach and make lessons fun, interactive, and relatable to students. Professional development thrives on discipline pedagogy and school departments meet to align goals and assignments and to discuss data assessment.

Waynesboro Education Farm is an ambitious project. It sits on 1.5 acres of land adjacent to Berkeley Glenn Elementary school in the city of Waynesboro, VA.

Over the years, I’ve found one of the best ways to help kids understand how an economy works is to have them take an active role in managing their own money.