Alongside climate change, artificial intelligence seems likely to have one of the most substantial impacts on human life over the next 20-30 years. However, outside of computer science classes, artificial intelligence is rarely addressed at the secondary school level. There are obvious benefits to teaching programming and algorithm thinking to high school students, but it…
Month: June 2021
The Learning of School Year 20/21
At the start of school year 20/21, I told that it would be unlike any in history, and suggested they consider writing a journal of their experiences. Coming off of the COVID-altered 19/20 school year, I had low expectations for remote learning, but the year went better than expected. Although I’m not sure how many…
Eating Semi-Vegetarian
My taste for meat and cheese and eggs is very much at odds with the reality that consumption of these foods not only vastly increases human and animal suffering but also has significant negative environmental impacts on people and the planet. And yet, it is only over the last half a year that I’ve been…
Light, Darkness, and Slavery
A couple of years ago, I read Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and was struck by its use of magical realism to portray the darkness of slavery and, as Whitehead articulated, “the truth of things, not the facts.” To be honest, I do think there’s some danger in fictional interpretation being understood as fact. At…
Scaffolding for Student Success
Teachers talk a lot about scaffolding for student success, but teachers understand scaffolding in different ways. In my view, good scaffolds allow students to access material, ideas, and skills they might not otherwise have the skills or knowledge to access. However, scaffolds can also be an unnecessary crutch that over-structure and overdetermine students’ thinking. Over…
Asking For Help
An interesting trend I am noticing in my students’ final reflections on the year, is that some are mentioning they didn’t ask for help as much as they should have, and they are recommending that future students ask for help when they need it. This is despite my constant refrains that, “the only dumb question…
Powerful Learning Remotely
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my students who were failing remote learning. In the end, as I approach my grading deadline, only six students will fail. That seems like a success relative to the 22 who were in danger of failing two weeks ago, particularly since I saw four of the six…
Eleven Days on the Picket Line
What follows are some reflections based on my notes from the 2019 Chicago Teachers Union strike where I served as my school’s strike captain. On our eleven days on the picket line, we sang, danced, ate, and engaged in conversation punctuated by honking cars and trucks, and the occasional middle finger angrily aimed in our…
Student Motivation
This pandemic year has, broadly speaking, had a pretty significant impact on student motivation to learn, and particularly to complete assignments. When I check in with students, I often hear, “I’m just not motivated right now, Mr. Rolnick.” While finding the motivation to complete schoolwork has always been a challenge for some of my students,…
Graduating Seniors
For the first time in my career, I am enjoying the experience of seeing students I first taught as freshmen, and then again as juniors and seniors, graduate from high school. Of course, these students have had their high school experience dramatically altered as a result of the pandemic, but as Illinois and the United…