Don Miguel Ruiz (2011), Mexican author and surgeon, writes in his book The Four Agreements that we must be impeccable with “our word.” This, he writes, is the first and most important agreement of all and also the most challenging agreement to honor. He writes “The word is the most…

Using the concept of essentialism to be a better teacher. — I was standing in the mailroom at Edgewater Regional High School watching my colleague, Doug Jones, pulling the mail from his box, as I stood by waiting for space to open up in the little room for me to do the same. He looked at the hunk of envelopes and…

Most American schools have operated under the tradition of using force (demanding compliance) to teach middle and high school students. Remote teaching during this pandemic has in more than one way become a trap for teachers. — Probably the most ubiquitous aspect of remote learning today is the use of teleconferencing software that enables audio/video live streaming through Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, and other platforms. This has been a lifesaver for teachers and students. Of course, it’s not the same as face to face teaching. Nobody is…

Whether its members of your local school committee, New York Times Columnist, David Brooks, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Governor Charlie Baker, DESE Commissioner Jeff Riley or the CDC, when people cite “research” claiming that schools are safe, they fail to mention that they are referring to a “single” study (Yes One…

A close friend expressed to me yesterday that she had been feeling lost, separate and been asking what is wrong with me? She said she had been feeling a “profound sadness.” This is one of the smartest, most conscious of my friends. …

As children returned to school after their Winter vacations and the end of the most collectively traumatic year of their lives, beleaguered school teachers around the country attempted to put on their most hopeful faces, looking forward to a better 2021. But, we all know by now, only two days…

QUESTION:What is micro-schooling? ANSWER: Recently a friend, knowing I am a professor of education, asked me what edpods are. She has a daughter going into kindergarten this Fall and is concerned about the quality of instruction she will receive during remote, hybrid or socially distanced learning. I had a loose idea. I had…

About five years into my career as a teacher, I discovered that there are aspects of chaos that I like, even love. The part I like the most is that when there is some sort of storm around my school, whether sociological, economic, personal, climatic, political, public health or whatever…

It’s Been thirty Years Thirty years ago this month, Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa and world-famous, anti-racist revolutionary, visited our very own Madison Park Vocational Technical High School in Boston. …