Teachers of Conscience and the Common Core Scylla and Charybdis
In our popular discourse, we are prone to say we are caught between a rock and a hard place, a veiled allusion to Homer’s Scylla and Charybdis. For K-12 public school teachers over the past thirty years, our Scylla and Charybdis have been federal, state, district, and school mandates on one side and our own professional expertise and autonomy on the other as we navigate the rough waters of serving
I Don’t Need Standards To Teach, I Need Students
Just days ago, I completed my twenty-eighth year as a teacher [1]—eighteen as a high school teacher of English followed by ten years as a professor of education. And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach. As a teacher,
12-21-13 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD
THE BECOMING RADICALRadical Scholarshipthe becoming radical A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by Supporting Common Core Is Supporting Entire Reform MachineSupporting Common Core is supporting either an increase or diversion of education tax dollars for funding CC-aligned textbooks, CC-aligned materials, CC-based high-stakes tests, CC-related teacher inservice and workshops, and expanded analysis