Author Archives: Julie Rust

Letting go can mean losing something you were holding.  But it can also mean blasting off to something new, you know, like that amazing climactic scene in Wicked when Elfa decides to defy gravity. So yeah, I witnessed this very phenomenon in Lea Crongeyer’s PK3 class the other day.  As in, the children themselves transformedContinue reading “Letting Go as Blasting Off in PK3”

When I was a superstar assistant professor at Millsaps and I was flying high on a great publication record and pretty stellar student reviews I submitted my mid-tenure portfolio with a dash of “YOU’RE WELCOME.”  I was on all the committees, doing all the things, and I had the naivete and overconfidence that made meContinue reading “Being Stingy with Grades Means I am Great Teacher and Other Lies I’ve Let Go”

This post was authored by Hannah LeBlanc. I think it is safe to say that many teachers are control freaks. Or at least, many lower school teachers. We are in control in our classroom all day long. And sometimes this can lead us to thinking that what we do in our classroom is the endContinue reading “Letting Go”

Sometimes you learn a lot when you have PERMISSION TO LET GO (literally), such as in this fabulous lab that I accidentally walked into last month in Rolando’s fourth grade science class.  The room quite literally surged with controlled excitement, students posed in eager anticipation to release their group’s marble down a ramp. One theContinue reading “Letting Go as a Site for Learning in Rolando’s Science Class”

You guys, we all feel it.  Even those of us lucky enough to teach in more skill-centered (rather than content-centered) fields.  It’s the push-pull of SO MUCH TO COVER AND SO LITTLE TIME.  Every choice to slow down for a longer conversation feels like a cost-benefit analysis.  “If we do this poem then we won’tContinue reading “Permission to Make Space for Stories”

Have you all had a chance to meet the very talented Xerron Mingo yet?  If you haven’t, consider this a strong recommendation to connect.  Xerron joined our middle school arts faculty this year in the field of performing arts, and if you know anything about 11-14 year old drama kids, this in itself is anContinue reading “Structure & Creativity Meet in 5th Grade Drama!”

Pretty much my favorite part of this job has been being in classrooms watching teachers do their thing: leading a circle time, doing a guided read aloud, telling a historical story, facilitating a great discussion.   But do you wanna know something that might surprise you? I love it just as much (and sometimes evenContinue reading “Projects & Choice as Practice in Letting Go”

This post was authored by Burton Williams-Inman. Honestly, I’m somewhat having fun with the title of this blog. I do, however, have a thought that I think is valid, and not all that radical/controversial (this is me, after all). It is April, which means we are solidly in Q4 of the school year and withContinue reading “Let Go of the “Letting Go””

When the TEAM reps sat down around a set of couches at Sal & Mookie’s on that sunny February afternoon to brainstorm a final theme for this school year, for this season of March-April-May and all that it entails, we kept returning to the fact that so much of our stress originates from self-imposed expectationsContinue reading “Letting Go Is Hard to Do”

I don’t know if it was a theme that resonated or the allure of potentially winning an amazing portable fan (congrats to our winners: Jim Foley, Kim Sewell, and Linda Rodriguez), but TEAM asked and you delivered with 23(!) robust responses that cover every corner of our teaching/learning school community.  Whether you shared a oneContinue reading “Letting Go & Clinging Tight”

It’s easy to teach a unit.  The hard part is designing the right assessment to see what each student has absorbed, individually and collectively.  The even harder part is finding time to analyze what they turn in to see what has been learned.  And the nearly impossible part is then following up to provide eachContinue reading “Podcast Drop: Can We Talk About Checking for Understanding?”

This is the scene no parent wants to enter: Your child is on the ground after a tough soccer game loss. Furrowed eyebrows, more people gather. You faintly hear Greg say calmly into a cell phone: “Brian, I know you’re at the basketball game, but this is an emergent situation.” Out of the corner ofContinue reading “How the Scariest Night Of My Life Taught Me Two Prerequisites to Understanding”

Authored by Kari East Traveling is my jam! Anytime, anywhere. Weekend getaway to the Florida coast – check. Three week vacation exploring the Greek Isles – check. Day trip to the Mississippi Delta to check out a cool dive bar – check. There’s something genuinely special about immersing yourself in a new place. I loveContinue reading “Making Sense of the Nonsense that is Middle School Life”

If you were to ask Alianna Rust the things she misses most from fourth grade as a burgeoning fifth grader, she would answer two-fold: (1) Seeing all the babies (2) Writing in Mrs. Lin’s class.   As a parent it has been cool watching my borderline dyslexic child #3 take on writerly identities.  It began inContinue reading “Writing Workshop as Checking for Understanding”

Last spring I had a health scare. So many of us do if we are lucky enough to live past our 30’s, and so many of us have robust support networks (many through this gift of a place we call work) that we can filter our stress and news and questions through. So many ofContinue reading “We Are Bodies Too”

My neighbor, Miss Deborah, has dementia.  Or mental illness.  Or something else.  All I know she is my mother’s age but she appears to be a few decades older.  Her skin is paper thin.  Her voice slurs from what I assume is a combination of medications for her various physical ailments.  When I visit, whichContinue reading “When Understanding Eludes Us: My Neighbor, Miss Deborah”

After a buncha blogs dedicated to enhancing our ability to check for student understanding, I think it would be just plain dishonest to forget to mention that chasm between knowledge and application, understanding and action. Ya know the really annoying people in life that give all kinds of advice but don’t actually take up theContinue reading “The Gap Between Understanding & Action”

Authored by Hannah Le Blanc If there is one school supply that screams “Lower School,” I think it would be a fresh sheet of manila paper. Or maybe, not a fresh sheet, but a sheet that has been sitting in the stack in the workroom for about 15 years. Why did this become such aContinue reading “The Power of Manila Paper”

Some days-weeks are very good, many days-weeks are so-so and pretty mundane.  But then there are some days-weeks that I can only call, with my most charitable words, “knock-you-on-your-face-and-kick-you-in-gut bad.”  Usually such weeks hit out of nowhere.  Like you aren’t prepared or ready and you walk into that Monday assuming it’s just another week. TheseContinue reading “When Things Don’t Make Sense Pick Up a Pen and Write a New Story”

This blog has been co-authored by Julie Rust & Meredith Boler! If I didn’t just see the best celebratory check for understanding of my life, I don’t know what I just saw.   Last Friday was the first of what I hope becomes a yearly tradition for our Pre-K4 students finishing up their Helping Hands unitContinue reading “Put your Pedal to the Medal”