Rethink Learning Now

The Reverend Charlie Holmes. When I was first assigned to his senior English class, I was struck by his title, and wondered how much of a role his religious training would play in his teaching. I was struggling with my own understanding of religion and its place in my life, and I was fearful of how his opinions might impose themselves upon our class expectations. In short, I didn't want to have to say I believed in a God that would do the things I had witnessed in the world. I didn¿t...

Goldfish C 2010 Bruce L. Greene The Goldfish I call it the 25-year test. What, if anything, you experienced as a high school student remains meaningful 25 years later? For a teacher, it's the same as asking did I make a difference or impact anyone in a positive way? My arrogance as a beginning teacher took the form of cognitive certainty. My approach would meet standards and requirements, but it would also be visceral. My students would feel...

I'm sure you've heard this a million times before. I never wanted to be a teacher. I never really thought about it as a viable career choice let alone a calling. When I look back on my life, I realize that I've always been a teacher, I just never knew it. When I was in elementary school, I struggled terribly with math. I had good teachers, but somehow, my brain/learning style did not match theirs or with the other kids. When I got to high school, my algebra teacher was the first person to...

I teach gifted students, k-12, in a small school. So, I have the easy job right? Wrong. If you have not worked with gifted children exclusively, you have no idea of their woes. They are greatly at risk of falling through the cracks, because the popular theory is, "they are smart, they will make it." There are so many holes in this theory, I would not know where to begin to dispute it. My classroom goal is to provide opportunities for the students to have new academic experiences...

Spending time with my two of my great-grandmothers. Both women were teachers in one-room school houses in rural Indiana post WWI. I loved to hear the stories about teaching grades 1-8, and the challenges of teaching to all grade levels. The challenges of teaching children whose first obligation was helping the family on the farm. I loved hearing about how they taught beginning reading, using the Sears catalog. When you think of the theories that are used today vs. the theories of...

I attended a public school that taught me how to love learning and how to question my surroundings. My fifth grade art teacher would welcome us into her classroom during lunchtime for drawing and painting, in which we would often discuss master works by Jackson Pollock and Van Gogh. My ninth grade English teacher would sneak me books from the high school's supply, trusting that I'd eventually return them. My eleventh grade math teacher would get so excited in the middle of discussing a...

Oh Kathy Harris! Your love of literture was contagious! Circa 1986, and there I sat in your American Literature class in rural Ohio. Completely turned off by school and being a willing participant in a self-fulfilling prophecy about where I would go academically, I thought your zeal over Whitman and Melville was insane. I admired you so much because you taught with such PASSION and you brought stories alive for us. It endeared me to those writers as though I had known them personally. I took...

I was promoted to third grade in Public School 121 in South Ozone Park in Queens, New York. I was always very skinny so the nurse, and my mother decided it would be a good idea to put me in a special class to see if I could gain some weight. Of course I was very upset to leave my regular class with my friends. Being a kid back in 1939 didn't give you much choice but to do what you were told. Much to my surprise the kids were very nice, and the teacher was superb. She not only taught...

I am a fifth grade teacher. I have been teaching elementary school for 23 years. For me, real learning is what happens every day. My students teach me how to wonder, how to persevere and mostly how to love life. Here's what it looks like: they don't understand why European explorers thought they could "discover" and claim land that was already settled no matter how I explain it. They want to know if we say that women and men are equal why men get paid more than women even if women work...

My first year in college was at a community college. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life at the time. So, I started by taking my general education requirements. One of the classes I took during my second semester was an introductory philosophy class taught by Mr. B. Going into this class I had no idea what to expect or what philosophy even was. What I left with was a basic understanding of philosophy and the idea that teaching could be a lot of fun. Mr. B was unlike any...

One main goal of education is democratic citizenship. Democracy is based on the core foundation of human nature, choice. Democracy begins with decision making, exercising one's freedom of choice, yet with respect to the millions of other people on the planet. While learning to uphold, honor, and celebrate our democracy, students must learn to be effective decision-makers. In order to become informed decision-makers, students need to learn to listen, think about challenges from multiple...