Teacher help: We all need a little help from time to time. Maybe it’s reminders of strategies or concepts you already knew. Maybe you’ve tried everything with a student you can think of and now you are looking for new ideas or a different perspective. Maybe you are simply feeling stressed or reaching burnout, and are looking for an empathetic ear. Here is a supportive network to help make teaching a more sustainable career.
Winter learning includes the discovery, exploration and connecting to our natural world during this important season.
Getting students outdoors, even just for 20 minutes, and engaged in environmental activities offers many benefits. This is true during winter and beyond.
The Emerald Necklace is the term used to describe our extensive public park System. Milwaukee’s a great city for a walk in the park and an even better place for outdoor learning!
Learning outside adds a dimension of enrichment that can’t be taught within the walls of the classroom.
Outdoor Learning includes the discovery, learning about and connecting to our natural world. Getting students outdoors, even for as little as 20 minutes, and engaged in environmental activities offers many benefits. Outdoor Learning includes the discovery, learning about and connecting to our natural world. Getting students outdoors, even for as little as 20 minutes, and engaged in environmental activities offers many benefits. I now call it the 20/20 Vision: 20+ minutes of outdoors and 20+ minutes of reading each day!
Walking with Nature: New research shows walking and talking enhances our mental creativity. The primary source of walking’s cognitive benefits seems to come from its effects on the mysterious spontaneous fluctuations of our brains. Reason is not the source of intelligence. Instead, it’s the product of it.
Walking with nature also makes us feel good. It releases endorphins which lowers our risk of depression. Walking with nature also increases cognitive functioning and strengthens our memory.
Teacher burnout is real. Are there ways for us to overcome it? Here are 6 suggestions that may help you stop teacher burnout before it becomes a runaway burnout effect.
Print Dictionaries: According to students, it’s so much easier to ask Alexa for a definition than to open a book.
We live in a fast-moving world. Being able to access information as quickly as possible is a good thing, right? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Online resources often can’t compare to their printed counterparts. And when needing a dictionary, this could not be more true.
Classroom Celebrations should ‘follow the child.’
In the classroom, this means allowing children to experience and engage in activities independently. The inverse is also true: It means resisting the urge to lead the child but instead to create an environment encouraging self-direction.
Therefore, classroom celebrations should not be a directive from above. Instead they should develop organically inside the classroom.
Courageous conversations are saying what needs to be said, in hopes to begin a larger debate over things we can be doing better. Let’s talk public education.
Grace and courtesy is the Classroom Management System designed by Dr. Maria Montessori. Dr. Montessori believed education should function as an aid to life. In fact, she viewed this to be the ultimate goal of education, holding even greater importance than imparting knowledge. Here’s why.
Prepared environment is a key component of Montessori philosophy. According to Dr. Montessori, everything within the environment has a purpose and fosters independence. All the child comes into contact with should also appeal to our human tendency toward exploration.