By Rachel Karchmer-Klein
Author, Improving Online Teacher Education: Digital Tools and Evidence-Based Practices
I’m a parent of a sixth-grader and like most families with school-age children, my husband, Read More
By Nancy Gropper, Merle Froschl, and Barbara Sprung, authors, Cybersafe Young Children
Part Two: One Click Away: Parents Navigate Cybersafety During the Pandemic
In recent months, schools across the Read More
By Joan Thormann and Isa Zimmerman, authors, The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Designing and Teaching Online Courses
Because of COVID-19 school closures, almost all teachers are required Read More
Many White teachers, like us, enter the field enamored of characters like Huck for what they allow us to feel as White people, especially in relation to people of color: heroic, on the right side of history, doing our part to combat racism through our teaching of literature. This is partly why so many of us reach for a text like Huckleberry Finn when we think about how it is that we (think) we address racism through our literature instruction. It feels good to “join” Huck in his decision to help Jim. And pointing out this decision through our teaching feels like we are doing work towards antiracist ends.
Professional development should be done by teachers, not done to them. It works best when it comes from the inside out, not from the top down. This idea is not new, and it is well-supported in research. However, teachers’ professional development is often provided, rather than supported. Why is this?
Writing art education lessons plans (or any lesson plan, for that matter) can seem like a tedious chore completed by a teacher for use by someone else (maybe) other than the teacher! However, I’d like to invite you to consider writing art lesson plans for a moment as a way to nurture your creative souls, which I lovingly refer to here as “unicorns and rainbows.”
