Rethink Learning Now

It is with enormous gratitude that I write this heartfelt thanks and reflection to my Shinnyo-En family. When I was invited to attend their conference in Hawaii and the lantern floating ceremony, I almost didn't come, as I was so busy with work and felt that it would be irresponsible to take off -- without my family -- for a week. So, I talked to my husband about going, and he said, "You should do this...it's a gift and it's as important to accept them as give them." And...

"To the world, you may only be one person, but to one person,you may be the whole world."

Never was this quote truer than for one little girl -- me. I attended six different elementary schools, moved twice during my junior high years and transferred into four different high schools. In the absence of extended family, my teachers became my mentors. In the absence of a busy social life, books became my friends -- and the CLASSROOM was my whole world.

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I attended a Headstart program nearly four decades ago. Admittedly, I have had many notable learning experiences since that time. As an educator, however, my nursery school days remain among my most personally and professionally formative.

Unlike most children who choose to become teachers when they grow up, I did not enjoy much of my schooling. Beginning in kindergarten, I passed from grade to grade in a blur of academic boredom and social dread....

The press badges on two junior high reporters caught the president's eye at the steps of Air Force One. "Oh, I see you're starting early," Richard Nixon told the students as he stepped forward to shake their hands.

The two student reporters, wearing the same press credentials as the half dozen professional reporters also at the aircraft, were the only ones who got to talk with the president. He was in Rockford, Illinois to deliver a campaign speech. It was...

Can we call this learning how important it is to empower students? My last year at Kettering Middle School, where I first taught, I had only two classes of 8th grade students, each of which I saw for two 73 minute periods a day, teaching them English, Reading, and American History. I wanted them to work on being able to tell personal narratives. I prepared them using several approaches. First, we read a passage from Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, by Clifton...

At Mission Hill School, we publish a weekly newsletter that goes out to our extended community, both near and far. Within the newsletter is a short piece from each classroom teacher. Usually, the piece is a reflection on the children's learning and growth. As I searched a few weeks ago for a topic to write I stepped away from writing about my students' progress and instead thought I'd share a little about my own reflection as a learner.

Recently it was our student...

My organization, Playworks, started going national about six years ago, and our first expansion city was Baltimore. On our first exploratory visit, we took one of our coaches, Lamarr. In his late twenties at the...

I entered the field of education along with my son, Aaron. When he entered kindergarten, I became a special education instructional assistant. After spending eight years team teaching among excellent and generous teachers and occupational and speech therapists, who enabled me to share in the actual teaching and utilize my creative side, I decided to go for my teaching certificate. My district believed in me and paid my tuition and salary as I went through an intense program....