Larry Ferlazzo: Teacher: 8 school concerns robbing me of sleep - The Washington Post

Teacher: 8 school concerns robbing me of sleep - The Washington Post

Teacher: Eight concerns about school this fall that are robbing me of sleep

The beginning of the 2020-2021 school year is just weeks away for millions of students — and some districts have yet to provide clarity on what is going to happen then.

With covid-19 cases rising — sometimes exponentially — in numerous states, a growing number of districts have announced that they will start the year with remote learning but shift to in-person instruction when (if?) the pandemic eases.

Teachers, school staff, students and parents all have strong concerns about how the year will unfold, and here are eight that are robbing a California teacher of sleep. He is Larry Ferlazzo, who teaches English and social studies at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento.

Ferlazzo has written or edited 12 books on education and is about to publish his 13th, writes a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and has a popular resource-sharing blog. He has also written pieces for this blog over the years, including one on how teachers can help students motivate themselves and this one, a favorite of mine, titled: “NEWS BREAK (not breaking news): Teacher asks students to grade him. One wrote: ‘I give Mr. Ferlazzo an A at being annoying.’ ”

By Larry Ferlazzo

With the decision to have most California schools going to full-time distancing learning in the fall, we have received the gift of clarity.

At the same time, I have begun working up very early in the morning with thoughts running through my mind about how all this is going to work, and what I have to figure out over the next few weeks.

I had a pretty positive experience with emergency long-distance learning in the spring, with high class participation, and, Katie Hull and I recently completed a chapter on distance learning in our upcoming book — “The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide” — that will be released for free soon.

I know a lot of teachers did not have a positive experience in the spring, and haven’t necessarily been able to take the time I have to process the experience through writing.

So, if I’m losing sleep and am anxious about the fall, I suspect that I am not alone!

Here are my top eight worries (not in order of importance): CONTINUE READING: Teacher: 8 school concerns robbing me of sleep - The Washington Post