Today, I pulled a teacher out into the hall while their class was working independently to check on something, and while we were chatting, one of the students came out with a vocabulary question. This student had encountered a word they were unfamiliar with in something that they were reading, and came out to get…
Throughout the month of September, in community meetings and in our Looking-glasses [4th-5th grade] meetings and journaling, we have been reflecting on community: what makes a community, how we feel in a community, the challenges of being in community, and what our responsibilities to one another are. Given the ways in which our society often…
A few months ago, I was in a Zoom call with Deans of Students at various Quaker schools. One of the questions asked, to which everyone took turns responding, was basically, “What does it feel like at your school right now?” And what I said, a few months ago, was, “It feels like we’re trying…
Right now, during this Omicron surge, the question of whether schools should be in person or remote is in the news and in public debate. With the infection rate going ever higher, we have been forced to close classrooms for the first time in the pandemic. Today, the Waves are back in school, after finishing…
In the middle school writing rotation, fiction writing came up on my unit map this year. While I have a curriculum that I regularly use to teach writing, I had a crazy idea- what if my students participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? NaNoWriMo is traditionally an adult-led tradition where people worldwide commit…
A date, a salutation, at least five sentences, a picture they’d like, a closing, and your name. It’s good to ask at least one question so they have something to respond to. These were the parameters of a buddy letter, as a few complaining middle schoolers explained to me. What were they complaining about? Not…