Larry Myatt’s story is much like one of mine. I had a passion to be a surgeon and in high school I read all the books I could find on the heart and heart surgeons. During my junior year I spent a month at Bellevue Hospital in NY volunteering in the Recovery Room. I observed surgery and spoke with patients. … Read More
Wood shop was something my Counselor advised me not to take.
I remember very little from any of my classroom experiences in high school which alone says something. Other than playing basketball and baseball, and having our own 6-piece dance/rock-n-roll band – I played guitar – I do remember three things which are the only things that stand out: wood shop, my presentation in sophomore English on jazz, and my research … Read More
Jenerra Williams' Learning Story
At Mission Hill School, we publish a weekly newsletter that goes out to our extended community, both near and far. Within the newsletter is a short piece from each classroom teacher. Usually, the piece is a reflection on the children’s learning and growth. As I searched a few weeks ago for a topic to write I stepped away from writing … Read More
Walking for Sanity
My whispered prayers today are for Mike, an ESL teacher from Hartford, Connecticut who I met last night. Mike explained that since the advent of “NCLB” his time testing students keeps growing. He now spends 61 out of 180 days each year testing rather than teaching his students. Another Hartford Special Education teacher, Candace, said she is spending the same … Read More
Kenneth Bernstein's Learning Story
Can we call this learning how important it is to empower students? My last year at Kettering Middle School, where I first taught, I had only two classes of 8th grade students, each of which I saw for two 73-minute periods a day, teaching them English, Reading, and American History. I wanted them to work on being able to tell … Read More
It had already been a long school year and it wasn't half over.
It had already been a long school year and it wasn’t half over. I was vice president of my daughter’s elementary school PTA and our school community was in its second year of a new principal. The start of the previous school year, we’d not only welcomed a new principal, but also a new assistant principal, new teachers, new students, … Read More
Raechel Waddy's Learning Story
I could never narrow down the path of learning which has led me to this point in life. I can’t pin it all on one defining epiphany that woke me up and made me pay attention. I can tell about all the small things which have added to my experience. These things may be the “…so you can get into … Read More
"I want to tell my mom about the skunk track!"
“What is that?” the boy asked the old man pointing at a spot in the mud. “Looks like a critter track. I bet you left one too,” said the old man, looking around at the muddy footprints on the rocks near the boy. The boy looks at his own tracks in the mud and on the rocks and asks, “Who … Read More
Gwendolyn Faulkner-Holley's Learning Story
I love teaching my students to write because there is no greater pleasure in my life than expressing myself. Over the years, as politicians and other folks push standardized testing, students resent the more formal writing and complain, refuse to participate or do a lousy job to prove how much they hate writing. Today, I explained to my students that … Read More
"John, you are in charge. What do we do now?"
I was 19 and in an instructor training course for Colorado Outward Bound. We had backpacked in to Snowmass Lake, and then, after crossing a steep snowfield (late June) climbed up over beautiful wildflower covered slopes into a high col in the ridge between Snowmass and the next cirque to the north under Capitol Peak. Just as we came into … Read More
