Challenges |

I quit teaching a week ago…

I quit teaching a week ago, and I was surprised. There have been so many immediate changes that have had such a big impact on my life in such a short amount of time. I want these posts to serve as a journal for me as I navigate my way through this transition, chronicling any…

How To: The Making of a Winter Concert video

The world has gone through some unprecedented changes in the last 2+ years, education included. Yet we’re still asked to replicate lessons, ideas, and events as if there wasn’t a global pandemic happening. The Winter Concert, an annual mainstay in almost every school, is a great example of this. Many music teachers are being asked…

Will Education Embrace Remote Learning?

“Remote learning is here to stay for a while,” said Kristen Brody, a CPS parent who spoke at a recent online panel organized by Raise Your Hand, a parent advocacy group. “We need to plan for the long term and we need to have something in place for our families and our students.”

How to host a Virtual Winter Concert

With everything up in the air at the end of the year, the annual “Winter Concert” might be low on the list of your priorities. Don’t scrap this time-honored tradition, use the new setting, and circumstances to re-invent what it can be! Sure packing hundreds of students and parents into a gymnasium might not work…

Be Thankful

A reflection exercise on Thanksgiving weekend as a monumental year winds to a close. What do we have to be thankful for in the year of 2020?

Concerns about Returns: What is the future of schooling?

Teachers at my school report back in exactly one month from today. We haven’t heard about what our school’s plan of action is yet, so I can’t say precisely how it’s going to look. UPDATE:, Chicago Public Schools did release a hybrid model earlier this week, but it leaves me with more questions than answers….