Apples for the teacher

Summer Advancement Opportunities for Teachers

As we move toward spring, most teachers are forced to concede that the 2020-21 school year was the greatest challenge ever in their professional lives. First of all, it was a challenge to teach. And second, this year proved to be a daunting obstacle to career progress. Suddenly, the possibilities of career advancement seemed to fade away – whether that progress meant choosing a teaching specialty, becoming a school principal, becoming head of a department, or finding a job in a different school or school system. Read more

Teacher Reseach Trends

Needed: Black Teachers

Black History Month is an opportunity to remind all Americans of the important role Black teachers have played since Reconstruction in empowering communities politically and socially. But today, it is particularly critical to convince more African Americans to join the profession. The U.S. faces a looming teacher crisis and:

  • African Americans are an especially underutilized talent pool, making up 15% of students, but only 7% of teachers.
  • African American high school students aspire to teach at only half the rate of Whites. (SRF Student Survey, Fall 2019)

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Student working online

Do Students Need Extra Protection when Working Online?

Are students more likely to be victims of cyberbullying during the pandemic when they are spending hours and hours of their days online? Are they more likely to become victims of online predators? Read more

High school student returning to school

Returning to the Classroom

The CDC’s Checklists Are a Helpful Resource

Returning to live instruction in the classroom, whether it happens in stages or all at once, is sure to be challenging to teachers, parents, and school administrators. But let’s not forget that . . . Read more

female high school student doing homework

How teachers can confront student’s pandemic-era excuses for not getting work done

“The Cloud Ate My Homework” . . .

There was a time when students could sometimes get out of doing their assignments by telling their teachers excuses like these . . .

  • “My dog ate my homework.” We’re not sure if any student ever used this excuse, but it is now considered a classic for not turning in assignments.
  • “My grandfather died.” Poor old grandpa died repeatedly in some families, just to give kids an excuse to stay home.
  • “I’m sick.” Of course, students do get ill. But many more of them claim to be sick when they aren’t. It’s probably the most common way of getting excused from going to school.

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First Lady Jill Biden

Why Having a Teacher as First Lady Is Bound to Help Education in America

Welcome, Jill Biden . . .

First Lady Jill Biden is clearly smart, resourceful, warm, courageous, and highly supportive of her husband. But she has something else going for her . . .

Jill Biden is a teacher Read more

Books in a high school library

A Pandemic Reading List for High School Students

If you teach high school students and would like them to develop a historical perspective on the great plagues and pandemics in history, we would like to suggest you let them know about the books on the list that we have compiled below.

One reassuring lesson these books teach is that the current Covid-19 pandemic, horrible as it is, might not be the most frightening or devastating world health disaster in history. Plus, these books contain a varied and useful selection of topics for students to research and explore. What public health initiatives were used to combat these prior pandemics, for example? What countermeasures did people use to combat them, and are there lessons we can learn? How was society changed, and what changes are still visible today? Read more