Are you the kind of skeptic that’s been around enough that every time an administrator launches a new “initiative” you’re like “okay I’ll just hang on a month or year and it will be gone by then anyway.”
Well if you felt that way about the blog THE JOKE’S ON YOU BECAUSE SHE’S BEEN GOING STEADY SINCE SEPTEMBER 2019!
Almost-four years is still pretty young. But old enough to be generally trusted not to run into a road. What I’m saying is, I think we safely say at this point the blog is potty trained. So let’s celebrate with some BLASTS from the BLOG’S PAST! This curation features blogs from Fall 2019-Feb 2020 to explore the question: What were like as a school community before the pandemic? Plus this can totally function as fun entertainment over the summer when I know everyone plans to catch up on every blog they missed.
- Go back to where it all started with “Wall O’Teacher Awesomeness” , when I used to have an office with writable walls and kept track of cool things I saw in classrooms.
2. Get some still-on-point podcast suggestions from Susan Pace for your summer road trip in “Podcasts: A New Generation of Listening and Learning”.
3. Dreaming about your 2023-2024 classroom set up? Check out Carla Kelly’s “Transforming My Classroom with Flexible Seating” for inspiration.
4. More interested in thinking about pedagogical choices than furniture? “Two Flavors of Flipped” might be more your speed, featuring Rebecca Bernhardt and Krissy Rehm (oh how we miss her!)
5. Do you want to be more deliberate with homework next year? Get a quick theoretical framework to help guide your thinking in “Homework: Bringing Purpose to the Practice”.
6. Want a little boost? Check out Shea’s “30 Things I’m Thankful For” from 2019 and see some familiar, pre-pandemic faces!
7. Do you want to be reassured that all is well, even if you are feeling uninspired and only met like one of your goals this past school year? Check out “Tis the Season: Embracing the Ebb and Flow of Innovation & Inspiration”.
8. “NaNoWriMo- 30 Days of Writing with Reckless Abandon” is a fabulous Margaret Mains (then Margaret Taylor) authored piece with true stories about her own fifth grade classroom successes and a killer-good list of further reading for anyone interested.
9. Thoughts on our Free Choice Friday program in Middle School . . . authored in January 2020! Oh Julie Rust, you had no idea what was coming.
10. Mary McCall McArthur wrote “Teaching Self-Advocacy” and it is an incredible blend of theory with how she practiced what she learned with her own students. This could be a really powerful way to start the school year for sure!
11. Weeks before the pandemic hit, Emily Philpott takes the “center” model from elementary and expands it brilliantly for upper school students in “Students on the Move”. Check it out and try it out next year.
12. Maya Buford shares the power of TPR (Total Physical Response) model for learning languages in “Aprendiendo Colores”.
13. Check out this interview with Perry Goldsbury to learn his super-cool use of interviews to bring science to life.
14. See the possibilities for cross-disciplinary partnerships in Kate Dutro’s “Messy Making in the Makerspace”!
It turns out we were doing some pretty cool things in 2019-early 2020. . . much like we are today. Here’s to summer functioning as a good time of remembering our past as we rest and rejuvenate for the future.