Problems
May 14, 2024
Because I write about good ideas on the internet, it’s easy to assume I’m full of good ideas (lie: most of them I stole from someone else). Let’s be open about some of the bad ones. I’ll go first. It’s nearly the end of the school year and as the good proficiency-focused language teachers we […]
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April 23, 2024
O say, can you see, by 2024’s bright sunlight? O’er the schoolyard’s chain link fence, we watch another school day unfurl. Saintly teachers never glare, lest they hurt children’s delicate sensitivities. Bubbles don’t burst in the air, because everyone is too busy evaluating opportunities to use AI. Friends, buckle up for a Sara-Elizabeth post on […]
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August 1, 2019
For a teacher, opening old files is like opening an old photo album. You’re flooded with memories, and also reflections on what went wrong and what went right: Why did I let my mom talk me into that perm? Stirrup pants with winter boots! When are those coming back? If I had real friends, they […]
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March 28, 2019
Athletic events. Widespread illness. Someone’s unprepared (teacher or students) or arrived late (“Teachers, due to a car accident on the highway, do not count any student tardy in first period today”). Emergency drill – or a passing kindergartener decided to pull the fun red handle on the wall. Half the class gone for an AP exam, […]
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November 20, 2018
From the “icky” test to the Supreme Court: Reflections on teachers sharing (& selling) ideas
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Last year, a fellow homeschool parent sent me a file she’d downloaded from an early childhood education resource site. “I’m sure it’s fine, because it was free,” she wrote. But this email came to me after probably years of disquiet and investigation into what exactly is okay for teachers to use and reproduce in the […]
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May 25, 2018
There is a new song on my radio, and we’re playing it on Alexa about twelve times a day lately. It’s provocatively called “Dream Small.” It’s a Christian song, so the overall message will not resonate with some of you, but I want to extrapolate, if I may, and say something that’s been on my […]
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January 11, 2017
Are you a bad teacher or a good teacher? Will anything about your teaching change in 2017? I’m pretty sure at every Camp Musicuentos, I’ve had a crier. At least one person has broken down in tears. At least one person has talked about applying to work at Starbucks. Teachers are feeling crushed under the […]
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July 28, 2016
Do you remember Kodak and Blockbuster? I do. My students do not. Listen to the man in the NYT video about the death throes at Kodak: What if? What if somebody else would have been a little more innovative? What if the board would have thought, let’s think a little bit farther out? And Blockbuster? When baby […]
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July 5, 2016
Ever feel like the world and our profession are changing so fast you can’t keep up? Which of those five new tech tools appearing on your Bloglovin’ feed is the one that you should use to finally start your students on proficiency portfolios (and where will you find the time to figure it out?)? It’s […]
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April 23, 2015
As promised, here are the “Three Before Me” posters for German and French. Big props to some good friends who helped me out with these translations, Wendy Farabaugh, Don Doehla, and Thomas Sauer. Download the free posters via Teachers Pay Teachers: German Bevor du anfängst mit der Fragerei, probier doch erstmal diese drei: 1) dich […]
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April 6, 2015
What do you do when you’re being forced into a textbook adoption that’s stifling the creative community in your school? Sometimes you turn to someone with a generally poor opinion of textbooks for advice. One of my favorite parts of doing what I do is the conversations I get to watch and sometimes even facilitate. […]
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March 14, 2015
Good morning from a sunny, beautiful spring day in Minneapolis, the location of the 2015 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. My presentation here is called “Arming Students for a World of Incomprehensible Input.” It’s based on an episode of the Black Box Podcast from last year (listen here, read the script here), […]
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