Program and Curriculum

NaNoWriMo

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…

Gender Relations in the Classroom

A couple of weeks ago, two students in my room—a boy and a girl, friends who often play as part of the same group—were on the outs. Small conflicts kept erupting. On the advice of one of our parent volunteers, who had just finished a difficult recess with them, I pulled those two students aside…

Kids Being Awesome

One thing I heard over and over when we began remote learning—first for a few days here and there in the fall, and then in December—was parents expressing amazement at how much more responsible and independent their children were during remote learning this year. It’s strange that we have this point of comparison. Whoever would…