Rethink Learning Now

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....

A great teacher's lesson can give you goosebumps and, if you're lucky, mindbumps too.

Marlene was my English Teacher and Choir Director in High School. She was everywhere. If your jacket smelled like stale cigarette smoke, she would let you have it. In the classroom, she shined some light into your lazy, dormant, misunderstood, overactive, apathetic or whatever-other-state your adolescent mind might've been in, and actually got you up in front of the class to act out...

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...

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...

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...

Dear Mr. Hatfield, It's Jupiter Jones from the Three Investigators Club! I know! It's been almost 25 years; where has the time gone??? I just thought you'd like to know what happened to your favorite trio. :) Well, Tobi became an R.C.M.P. Officer and is now living in the Northwest Territories with her husband and new baby. Lisa followed in her father's footsteps and became a lawyer just like she said she would. And as for me, I followed in your footsteps and became a teacher. Yes, I...

When I was 17 I went to the Rhode Island School of Design for a summer pre-college program. I went there to see what it would be like to be an art student and to experience life away from my family for the first time. I was a fairly sheltered child, a do-gooder who thrived on pleasing the adults in my life. As a strong student I was unaccustomed to failure, or really, even challenge. So, understandably, there were many things that happened that summer which would qualify as powerful...

I felt safe and comfortable around her. I was eager to go to school every day because I just couldn't wait to be in my English Language teacher's classroom. It was not just the classroom that was inspirational, I just don't have words powerful enough to describe her lessons that took us one rung higher each day. Mrs. Kashora's classroom was not only a learning beehive, but it was a beautiful gallery that took you to all parts of the world where you learned about a people you never met. It...

One of the most powerful learning experiences that I was involved in is the result of interaction with my Fontana High School Marine Biology Teacher, Kathy Crane. When I graduated, Mrs. Crane, gave me a graduation card with three $2 bills in it. The money was part of the money that my mother had given me as a junior to go on a field trip with the Science Club. Mrs. Crane knew that it had been a stretch for me to attend many of the events sponsored by the science club since both my parents...

Learning SAVED my life. Growing up in a small town afforded me the privilege of having small classes and almost individualized learning. The elementary classroom teachers had their own library, which we could easily utilize. Unfortunately, I usually finished off their books before the Winter Holidays and scrounged to find books to read for the rest of the year. From there we went to a county 6-year school where I discovered a heavenly place called a library. I could physically take...

It was my mother and dad who instilled in me my love for learning and a desire to become a teacher. I loved learning and going to school. My parents were farmers and we, the eight children along with our parents were responsible for harvesting the crops in the fall each year. I would pray for it to rain so that I could go to school. My mom and dad always offered encouragement telling me that I could be what I wanted to be. Even when I was absent from school because of working on the farm,...

My wall is decorated with handmade drawings and cards, mementos from the Family Giving Tree, a holiday event I host every December with my Youth Advisory Council for the 250 underprivileged kids at the Starbird Youth Center. The kids used to receive holiday presents through the city. Now, despite city budget cuts, I wanted the kids to continue to have the opportunity to experience a spirited holiday season. I spent months finding adults and corporations to donate the sweatshirts, roller...