This morning I decided to tune into the House select committee testimony on the January 6th capitol insurrection, despite avoiding much of the news about the insurrection over the last 6 months. I surprised myself with how deeply moved I was by the testimony I heard from the four police officers on their experiences. All…
Category: Teaching
Teaching Media Literacy
Every year in the course of my teaching I discover that students have been duped by a conspiracy theory or misinformation, typically through social media. From 9/11 conspiracy theories to QAnon and #SaveTheChildren people are susceptible to misinformation and disinformation that alters their relationship to reality. The explosive rise of the internet and various social…
Afghanistan Withdrawal
“We have been at war for your entire life,” I told my classes of mostly 16-year old students a couple of years ago in a unit focused on American involvement in the Middle East. Most of them weren’t that surprised. The truth, at least according to Andrew Bacevich in America’s War for the Greater Middle…
Teaching Writing
How did you learn to read and write? Can you tell a story about your literacy? This is a question I ask my students at the start of each year. Every year, I am struck by the diversity of student responses, as well as the varying levels of enthusiasm for both skills. My own memories…
Professional Development
Most of the teachers I met in Chicago were frustrated with a great deal of the professional development provided to them by the district and in their schools. I suspect this sentiment is shared in a lot of settings and probably outside of teaching as well with required professional learning, or human resources modules for…
Advice for a New Teacher
I had a student-teacher last term for the first time. It was a learning experience for both of us, made challenging by remote learning and the complexity of one of the courses I taught. I shared some advice with him at the start of his placement, and am now revising for his first year. It’s…
Adolescent Development and Technology
Back when I was doing my Masters in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I took a couple of classes in adolescent psychology. At the time, I didn’t find them all that useful, as many of the interesting and useful insights were duplicated in a wonderful class in the learning sciences which was…
Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence
Identifying and defining intelligence is a challenge since there are so many ways in which humans, animals, and artificial creations display intelligence. Although some academics have made the case that standardized tests like the SAT measure intelligence reasonably well, they notably avoid trying to define intelligence at all. Certainly, the SAT measures a specific sort…
Our Children
It is no great surprise that humans care for their children over all others, but the deeply human need to care for “our children” over the children of a community or a society presents some significant challenges for policymakers and those interested in improving social, economic and educational outcomes for children who grow up in…
Artificial Intelligence in Social Studies
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…