October 2011 Blog Posts (32)

     Once upon a time there was a little 2nd grade boy. He was new to a school, and he brought with him, all his problems and issues.  Sent to live with dad after mom "couldn't take it any more", a pre-primer reading level, an evil…

I have been a student, athlete, teacher, coach, athletic director, administrator and parent.  I have benefited from an excellent education with terrific teachers and have experienced the best times of my life in the athletic arena. But I am confused by how our society places higher prestige on athletics than it does on academics. Here are some examples I have experienced and some possible solutions.  Please note that some of my solutions are tongue in cheek, but hope this post will open…

As we race to place technology in the hands of students in our schools, let’s consider an alternative view. The New York Times published an article on its front page on October 23, 2011, titled A Silicon Valley School that Doesn’t Compute (by Matt Richtel; at…

(As shared on my blog 10/24/11 at Teachingwithsoul.com)

Mentoring Matters

A mentoring commitment is not easy, but mentoring matters. It takes hard work by the mentor and mentee, but it’s work that I believe is worth the…

I walked into the copy room and this was sitting on a table with the words: "This is a must READ :)".



I agree, and I think it is also a "Must SHARE!" I Googled it and realized it has been around for years, but I got a laugh out of most of them!:)



You get a secret thrill out of laminating things.…

Yesterday, I participated in a wonderful public discussion on Education. The best part about this discussion was that it was with predominantly real educators, people who actually teach, volunteering their time and expertise on the subject of education. They discussed real issues of education and the real impediments to reform from a real educator’s point of view. There were representatives of: teachers, administrators, IT people, school board members, and parents. Dell sponsored the event,…

The Government cuts in public services have hit all Local Authorities (LA's) hard, although it is arguably the smaller Unitary Authorities and the schools within them who have lost the most.

Being in Blackpool we have seen school support teams decimated to the point where the officers within the service are spread very thinly…

Twitter is just the best free resource for conservations and input into your classes. Students think in text today and this allows for quick and short responses. Students like it and it seems they will tweet things long after class is over.

I use it to find trends in my field and to share what I am doing in my classroom.

Tweet…

Visit My Blog: http://www.bburkhead.blogspot.com/

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." - John Adams



On the first day of Personal Finance class, I explain to the students that the course is designed to empower them with the financial tools they need to manage their money consistent with what they value. The students are challenged to have…

It is my birthday today, so please forgive me for allowing my contemplation once again lead us down a well-travelled path. I have discussed this topic in posts before, but it is a subject that will not go away as long as we have younger people working next to older people. As one of those older folks, I might better state it as the “rookies” working beside the “seasoned veterans”. Of  course all of this is further confused by the introduction of the digital native theory. For these, and some…

What is the best?

The big question I ask my students at the beginning of each year is…

“What hats do YOU wear when you’re reading?”

Posters…

The way I like to teach the 5o states is to teach and assess in regions. These are some ideas that help students learn the states in small chunks rather than all at once.

•  break the states up into 5 regions of 10 states
•  introduce 10 states per week.
• assess the states at the end of the week
• make the test cumulative so that each assessment reassesses the all of the past states
• 1st test is 10, 2nd is 20, 3rd is 30, 4th is 40, and 5th is…

(Sharing my latest post from my Edutopia New Teacher Blog http://www.edutopia.org/blog/mentoring-new-teachers-lisa-dabbs)

Mentoring…

We live in a time of high-stakes testing.  I am not one to debate the validity of these tests or the appropriateness of them.  I am an idealist in how I approach my day to day life in the classroom but I remain a realist.  I understand that I must prepare my students for them and I must begin to look towards what data they provide to help me plan for instruction.

So, I began the year surrounded by data.  As I continued to dig deeper, it became clear that my state identified…