Tag Archives: Education
Practicing Close Reading to Inspire Social Action
Joan Flora and Pattie Sloan: two teachers challenging the status quo If you are familiar with Common Core reading standards, you probably already know–and maybe dread–standard #10: read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently. For now, … Continue reading
Posted in classroom lessons that change the world, Uncategorized
Tagged 90/90/90 schools, Chief Joseph, close reading, Common Core, decision making, Douglas Fisher, Education, ELA mini performance tasks, empowering students, engaged learners, English Teachers, High School Literature Teachers, Kelly Gallagher, Nancy Frey, Performance Task, Social Action, Social Justice, The American Dream
Leave a comment
The Difference Between Challenge and Stress
by Joan Flora, in honor of Pattie Sloan’s retirement According to a recent survey in USA Today, 27% high school students report “extreme stress” during the school year, as opposed to 13% in the summer. 34% predict their stress levels will rise with … Continue reading
Moving Forward Requires Character
Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status quo In many sectors of our country, public education is spinning in preparation for the Common Core roll-out in the fall. Districts, schools, and classrooms are frantically preparing for this new movement in education as … Continue reading
What is the Real Price of Cheap?
Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status quo Transformational classrooms allow the world into the curriculum and create open discussion about the world and its problems. But moving beyond the problems, a transformational classroom creates change … Continue reading
Implementing Justice in an Unjust Classroom
By Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status quo When thinking about poverty and its impact on society, many of us to think about the streets of the inner-city or across the ocean to a Third World Nation. The reality … Continue reading
Bravo! Encore! In Praise of Teachers
by Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status quo We are advocates for teachers and all they do for students and schools. Because of their sacrifice and service, teachers will often miss exercise, play, naps, and all of the wonderful … Continue reading
Why We Need the Arts and PE in Our Schools
by Joan Flora and Pattie Sloan: two teachers challenging the status quo Brace yourselves for CNN’s report by Kathleen Porter-Magee; this is going to hurt: Affluent youngsters, especially if they were also white, were much likelier to get rigorous curricula, advanced courses, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Literacy, Social Action, Uncategorized
Tagged 90/90/90 schools, American students in poverty, CCSS, Common Core, decision making, Education, empowering students, engaged learners, English Teachers, equality in education, Eric Jensen, Failing students, High School Literature Teachers, Increasing student achievement, Language Arts, Mind Set, Paul Tough, poverty in America, Social Action, students living in poverty, Teaching students from poverty, The American Dream
Leave a comment
Giving Poverty a Voice: West Salem HS Students for Change
Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status quo. Generational poverty isn’t easy to talk about. It’s challenging to understand poverty as a complex social force; it’s uncomfortable to look at our own responses, as Americans, to American poverty. However, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Literacy, Social Action, Uncategorized
Tagged decision making, Education, Educators, empowering students, engaged learners, English Teachers, High School Literature Teachers, hunger in American, Language Arts, Mind Set, poverty, students living in poverty, Teachers as Readers, Teaching, The American Dream
Leave a comment
Why Should we Care? Connecting Native Son to Today’s Generational Poverty
Pattie Sloan and Joan Flora: two teachers challenging the status Schools have strong cultures, and because of this, it can be very difficult to bring new awareness to students when the ideas are so alien to that school culture. Instructing affluent … Continue reading
Curating Creativity
It’s hard to miss motivation and creativity when it blooms in front of us. Yesterday, Joan’s eighth-grade son returned home from his Model UN experience saying, “In 362 days, I get to go back as a delegate of one of … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Literacy, Social Action
Tagged decision making, Education, Educators, empowering students, engaged learners, English Teachers, High School Literature Teachers, Language Arts, Mind Set, Model UN, project-based learning, Social Action, Teachers as Readers, Teaching
Leave a comment
Teaching it Forward 