Dear Teacher, Ugh. If you’re like me, the middle of the fall semester is the most difficult time of the year. And it was my plan to release this episode last month, but October. Just before we entered the month of November, I learned of a new acronym (Jus

If you're a teacher with ideas and you are looking to connect with your principal about getting them in motion, this is the episode for you.  Back in February of 2019, I posed a question on Twitter that got a lot of attention. It sparked an ongoing c

Dear Teacher, When putting our best teacher foot forward, we will inevitably hit snags, set backs, or difficulties of some kind. At times, those set backs are small bumps in the road. And sometimes the problems we run into are deep, serious, and abiding.

Dear Teacher, When was the last time you were genuinely excited about your own professional growth? For me, I am the type of person who listens to educational podcasts on my commute, downloads audio books for all of those times I walk the family dog, and

Dear Teacher,  If you’re like me, you struggle with knowing how much time, effort, and energy you should give to the job. My lessons are never good enough. I worry that I have not given enough to assessing my students’ progress. And I am constantly t

Dear Teacher, When I was in my ninth year of teaching, out of the 180 I was contracted to spend in front of my students, I was out of the classroom for 33 of them. For thirty of those days, I was out of the classroom for one of the three district committe

Dear Teacher, Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have a roster full of students who are at differing levels of ability. And it’s your job to get ALL of them to an acceptable level of proficiency. As the year unfolds, to do this, you realize that you nee

Dear teacher, when it comes to the challenging work of classroom instruction, have you ever felt overwhelmed? Maybe boxed in? How about exhausted? If you have, guess what? . . . That's completely normal! Teaching is a joy, at least it should be, right?

Dear Teacher, When you got your first job, did you get the most undesirable position in your department or grade level? What about passed up for a position because the other applicant had more seniority? Have you presented ideas at meeting only

Dear Teacher, "Don't you trust me to make good decisions in my classroom?" I don't know about you, but there was a time when I both wanted and didn't want to know the answer to that question. This was especially true when it came to a particular principa