Never one to quit, I have spent the last several years bouncing from one position to the next as my school has changed things around. It left me no time for writing and no time to…yes, I am going to say it…stop and think. Since Education Reform has clearly become a huge thing, that has … Continue reading
Author Archives: Jennifer
Pay no attention to the Great and Powerful Ed Reform behind the curtain…it’s not as magical as we’ve been led to believe
There have been several articles from a variety of sources in the past month about how ‘the newest things’ in education, which have been held up as the perfect solution for the last few years, are starting to fray around the edges and some are even crashing in on themselves. The New Orleans school system … Continue reading
A Return to Writing
After an extended hiatus I’m returning to writing. In the last two years everything has changed; my school was taken over by a charter, I have moved to a new school, I have switched subject areas three times in the last three years, and those are only the ‘big things’. As you can imagine the … Continue reading
Professional Development in Schools and the Rise of the Paid Expert
Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core is a recent article by Stephen Chiger for Huffington Post’s online education page. In the article he apologizes to one of his old professors for not reading deeply enough and talks about how he recently participated in a class that made him feel “like an intellectual and … Continue reading
testing…it’s only funny in comics
Obviously I cannot take credit for this comic (or any of the other ones), it has been all over the web for at least a year or two but I see it more often at this time of year, probably because testing season has begun. As yes, Spring is here, the snow is starting to … Continue reading
Alphabet Soup…the Mulligan Stew Version
I have been thinking about educating students who speak English as a second language in the framework of my own family history and the history of immigration in the United States. Since St. Patrick’s Day just recently passed I can safely assume that at some point last weekend there was someone nearby wearing a lei … Continue reading
The alphabet soup of working with students whose first language is not English…or what ESL, ELL, ESOL, EAP, EAL, EFL, ELT, ESOL, TESL, TEFL, and TESOL mean
These labels are an alphabet soup of confusing mixed messages that makes the debate about how to best educate children who are learning or speaking English as a second language confusing and difficult to follow. Is a child labeled ESL or ELL? Do we have a certification in TESL or TESOL? Or does it matter … Continue reading
