First off, whether and when schools open and under what conditions is a decision school districts will make. I’m not advocating one way or another. Here at SCM, we deal with what is in front of us. We accept what we cannot change and … Read more
At some point, we’ll all be back teaching in person. Only now it will be behind a mask. At first glance, this seems more than just a nuisance, but impossible to do effectively. After all, students need to see your mouth and facial expressions … Read more
How to be a good student—one’s physical and mental preparedness—is absolutely critical to academic success. Sadly, teaching these skills have been thrown into the dust bin alongside sentence diagramming and mathematical algorithms. In fact, success preparedness has been so de-emphasized in recent years that … Read more
Hit the ground running. Send a message to your new class about what’s expected right from the get-go. The quicker you set a culture of kindness, respect, and high-bar work expectations, the easier it will be to maintain. So during that first hour of … Read more
To be an effective teacher, you must be able to build positive relationships with your students—because it causes them to want to listen to you, behave for you, and please you. It gives you the leverage you need to influence their behavior and work … Read more
Ready or not, it looks like most of us will be teaching on campus next month. What that will look like is still up in the air. There are many more questions to be answered and policies to be ironed out—and probably will be … Read more
Studies show that Black students are disciplined more severely than their White classmates for the same misbehavior. And the most common classroom management methods used today—with their subjective interpretations of misbehavior, token economies, and manipulative practices—are at least partly to blame. They’re rife with … Read more
I don’t read professional teaching books. I haven’t for many years. The reason is to keep my writing as authentic and untainted as possible. It must be based on what I see, what I experience, and what I have success using myself. Otherwise, I … Read more