Having finished a year of this, I have to say that my assessment of online learning is overwhelmingly negative. However, there are elements of the online teaching experience that I will take into my classes even when Covid is a memory and the Zoom stock levels out.
This transfer of education from the classroom to the virtual world requires you to own your education and decide that regardless of what happens, you are going to make sure your learning does not stop.
I’ve been a high school English teacher for so long that you’d think I had the letter writing gig down to a science. You know, finding ways to turn a lazy, obnoxious, entitled kid into a “witty future leader, brimming with possibilities.”
It’s the season of graduations and my newsfeed is filled with caps and gowns and diplomas. This year, I had two kids doing the Pomp and Circumstance walk. One was graduating high school and the other finishing middle school. They… Read More ›
Writing Elves is taking a break this week. So guest blogger Matthew Silkin has stepped in to fill the void. Here’s his take on graduating high school – and graduations in general. Leave comments for him below. Follow him on… Read More ›
File this one under asinine. Emphasis on the first syllable. A friend of mine shared a project that her child’s school launched this year. It’s a school newspaper. I know that doesn’t seem like anything extraordinary, but this is a very… Read More ›
I have a confession to make. I hate The Scarlet Letter. I hated it in High School. I hated it in college. I hated it in Grad School. That might not seem like such a big deal to you, but… Read More ›
Someone came over to me and asked me about cheating in school. She wanted to know the moral implications of cheating – what it says about a person who would copy someone else’s work. And are there different levels of… Read More ›
Most nights, I go to sleep wondering if I am teaching my son to lie. It’s true. Straight up. Full disclosure. Maybe it’s because he’s the fifth child. Or maybe it’s just that I’m older. But every night when I… Read More ›
It’s Stephen King’s birthday this week. Saturday, to be exact. I’ve been a Stephen King fan for quite some time now. I picked up Pet Semetary when I was in ninth grade. At the time, everyone was passing around VC Andrews’ Flowers in… Read More ›