Teacher to teacher

One of the best decisions I ever made was to teach hearing-impaired kids. When I took a sabbatical in 1999, I was fortunate enough to receive a full scholarship in deaf studies and was able to follow my dream to combine my love of language and special education and to breathe new life into a longstanding career.

Most core curricula come with the caveat that schools are encouraged to expand and enrich the curriculum as they feel appropriate and should view the framework as neither restrictive nor exhausting. This is where many teachers find themselves struggling: having to develop a unit after being given only a core curriculum as a basis.

“War is the worst thing that can happen to any nation,” declared my guest as my rapt intermediate-level English-as-a-second-language students carefully passed around the framed black-and-white photo of her brother, who had died in the Bosnian War during the mid-1990s. I had never seen my 9th-graders this attentive, polite or poised.

This is my fifth year in the classroom and, aside from my first year as a lost but eager and wide-eyed freshman, it has been the most professionally challenging by far. Without quite the experience and confidence of a master teacher, but lacking the infinite energy of a newbie, I found myself in teaching limbo. By December, I asked myself: Why am I here?

Let music into your elementary school classroom! I find that bringing music into my daily routine can create a sense of community, ease transitions and simply lighten the mood or bring energy back into a long day.

Over the past few years, “scientific inquiry” has become a buzzword in many science curricula. Unfortunately, science educators find it challenging to engage students in the process of inquiry — in part because they themselves do not have a good understanding of what it is.

If someone asked you to close your eyes and imagine the smell of freshly baked bread, would you think of cooking that or other scrumptious treats in your elementary or junior high classroom? If you do cook with your students, when they inhale the scent of healthy fresh foods they will be transported back to what they learned in the classroom.

This year I made a terrifying decision. As a career social studies teacher, I decided to tackle teaching writing. I discovered that teaching writing to adolescents is one of the most frustrating and time-consuming things I have ever done.

A great way for educators to engage English language learners is through the use of nonfiction narratives that connect to their cultural experience or historical backgrounds. An ideal example for New York City classrooms is an epic work by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence about the Great Migration.