Widgets of Wisdom Archive
See all past weeks’ Widgets of Wisdom here.
Articles of the Week
What Do You Wish Lawmakers Knew About How Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Legislation Affects Teenagers?
Will Larkins, a high school student in Florida, wrote a guest essay in response to anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation that activists have labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Credit...Todd Anderson for The New York Times Will Larkins, a high school junior, did just that. Larkins appeared before a Florida Senate committee and wrote a guest essay in The New York Times, “Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Will Hurt Teens Like Me.” In it, Larkins writes: Last October, I attended a high school Halloween party. A group of guys from my school surrounded me and shouted homophobic slurs. One even threatened me with physical violence. When I broke down crying in class the next day, my teacher comforted me....
Teachers Are Quitting, and Companies Are Hot to Hire Them
Kathryn Dill for The Wall Street Journal Writes... Burned out teachers are leaving the classroom for jobs in the private sector, where talent-hungry companies are hiring them—and often boosting their pay—to work in sales, software, healthcare and training, among other fields "Teachers’ ability to absorb and transmit information quickly, manage stress and multitask are high-demand skills, recruiters and careers coaches say. Classroom instructors are landing sales roles and jobs as instructional coaches, software engineers and behavioral health technicians, according to LinkedIn." Read more...
Linking Continuous Improvement and Adaptive Leadership
Jal Mehta, Max Yurkofsky, & Kim Frumin for ascd.org Writes... The logic behind "continuous improvement" sounds simple—but it takes a skillful leader to make the process pay off. The "continuous improvement" process many school organizations now espouse seems simple and unassailable: Define a problem, develop an approach, try it, see if it works, revise accordingly, and repeat, ad infinitum. The logic of this approach, adapted from business and health care, has proven widely attractive in education. Over the past two decades, education has seen a proliferation of specific approaches that rely on forms of continuous improvement. Networked improvement communities, Data Wise,...
How Teachers Find Jobs in the Business World, With Higher Pay
Many teachers are quitting their classroom jobs to pursue new positions in the private sector. Wall Street Journal workplace reporter Kathryn Dill joins WSJ Your Money Briefing host J.R. Whalen to explain teaching-related skills that recruiters find attractive. Plus, former elementary-school teacher Raven Wilson explains how she sought out and found a new career in the education-technology sector. Listen to the podcast...
Teachers Are Quitting, and Companies Are Hot to Hire Them
Kathryn Dill for The Wall Street Journal Writes... Burned out teachers are leaving the classroom for jobs in the private sector, where talent-hungry companies are hiring them—and often boosting their pay—to work in sales, software, healthcare and training, among other fields "Teachers’ ability to absorb and transmit information quickly, manage stress and multitask are high-demand skills, recruiters and careers coaches say. Classroom instructors are landing sales roles and jobs as instructional coaches, software engineers and behavioral health technicians, according to LinkedIn." Read more...
My School Didn’t Teach Us Black History, So I Started Doing It Myself
Janiah Hinds for EdWeek Writes... “Black history can be viewed as an “endangered species” that we have to work deliberately to keep alive so that we can ensure that its knowledge is ongoing.” Janiah Hinds, 17, is a high school senior in Florida and the owner of Slay It Proud, an educational and apparel company dedicated to educating others about Black history. Read her full article on EdWeek.org Read more...
Why I’m Not Too Worried About Learning Loss
All three of my kids have missed a significant number days because of the need to quarantine. The Omicron variant is sweeping through our neighborhoods and our local school district recently created a no-contact day this last Friday. Many caregivers and community members are concerned about learning loss with the missed days on top of the virtual learning schedule from last year. -- And yet . . . I’m not terribly concerned about learning loss... [Here's why] - John Spencer Listen to the podcast...
Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron
Katy Farber for EdWeek Writes... “I have no words to describe what it is like to be a teacher right now.” That is what I tweeted at the end of a day earlier this month, sitting on the couch while COVID-19 cases surged everywhere. As a writer and a teacher, I had no words to describe what was happening. After sitting down to write this essay, I found a few words. Read more...
Efforts to Toughen Teacher Evaluations Show No Positive Impact on Students
More than a decade ago, policymakers made a multi-billion-dollar bet that strengthening teacher evaluation would lead to better teaching, which in turn would boost student achievement. But new research shows that, overall, those efforts failed: Nationally, teacher evaluation reforms over the past decade had no impact on student test scores or educational attainment. Read more...
The Problem With the “Disney Version of History”
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It’s a reassurance Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. included in several of his speeches over the years, one he shared with crowds across the country. And if we look at history a certain way, the arc contracts. Dr. King was born 64 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment. President Obama was born only 32 years after that. From 1865 to 1964—less than a century separates the birth of the last person born into slavery from the birth of the first black U.S. president. Read more...
Podcasts of the Week
LGBTQ History in Public Schools
QUEER AMERICA LGBTQ History in Public Schools – w/ Emily K. Hobson & Felicia T. Perez Lessons from the classroom—from high stakes testing to critical thinking skills—professor Emily Hobson & public school teacher Felicia Perez discuss their experiences and practical advice to help you incorporate LGBTQ History. Listen to the podcast...
Four Principles To Reset Accountability Post Covid
The TeachThought Podcast Ep. 281 Four Principles To Reset Accountability Post Covid Drew Perkins talks with Chris Domaleski, Associate Director with the Center for Assessment, about how to navigate school accountability issues resulting from covid and how to move forward in supportive and perhaps innovative ways. Listen to the podcast...
Academic Freedom: What Are We Teaching, What Are We Prioritizing, What Are Our Options?
The boundaries of what we teach and what is important to teach are shifting quickly. In this episode, we explore the reasons why academic freedom is in flux and what teachers will need to consider going forward. Tune in to hear Tom Whitby and Shawn Thomas with Dana Cole Listen to the podcast...
The TeachThought Podcast Ep. 278 Bridging Divisive Conversations…
Drew Perkins talks with Mónica Guzmán about her new book, I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, and her work with Braver Angels and the applications to great teaching and learning. Listen...