Teacher Life Archives - Page 2 of 5

Oct 04 2021

Empower symbol with fist and lightning bolts

You Don’t Have to Be a Martyr to Do Student-Centered Learning

By John Spencer Creativity, Empowering Students, Podcast, Teacher Life 4 Comments

It's been quite a year so far in American education. Between school board battles over Critical Race Theory to protests over mask mandates, we are seeing significant social strife playing out in the context of our schools. We're also seeing school staff shortages, leading to…

Aug 18 2021

What Ted Lasso (And These Three Other TV Shows) Taught Me About Being an Educator

By John Spencer Creativity, Podcast, Teacher Life 2 Comments

I never cry while watching a drama. I can feel all the feels of a serious motion picture but it will never move me to tears. This isn't a hyper-macho "dudes don't cry thing." I'm a pretty sensitive guy. It's just a reality of my…

Jun 24 2021

What will we take away from this year?

By John Spencer Creativity, Podcast, Teacher Life One Comment

Nothing about this evening fit the description of a dance recital. Not the parking lot or the lawn chairs or the sound of the cars whizzing past. I sat in jeans and a sweatshirt, eating a slice of pizza off a thin paper plate as…

Jun 11 2021

Finding Rest and Recovery After a Hard Year

By John Spencer Creativity, Teacher Life One Comment

Teachers have been amazing this year. Many of them taught virtually for the first time ever and spent their free time learning new strategies and expanding their professional knowledge. Despite the lack of physical space, they cultivated a positive classroom community and proved that social…

Dec 28 2020

A Different Way to Set Goals for the New Year

By John Spencer Podcast, Teacher Life 7 Comments

With the new year coming up, there's a good chance you're coming up with some resolutions. Personally, I like the idea of coming up with a few really easy New Year's Resolutions just to make it easier when I bomb in another area. I think…

Dec 08 2020

You’ve Done Enough This Semester

By John Spencer Podcast, Teacher Life 2 Comments

At the start of this semester, I made a goal of meeting with each student one-on-one. I believe in the power of check-ins and I wanted to make sure my students felt known. I could tell you all about Anderson and Garrison's research showing the…

Jun 02 2020

Making Anti-Racism a Priority (Lessons from My Former Principal)

By John Spencer Podcast, Teacher Life 15 Comments

It was my sixth of teaching but everything felt new. I was in a new position (photojournalism) at a new school. So, when I heard the words, "we need talk," from my new principal, I panicked. "John, I think the morning announcements have been working…

May 18 2020

Seven Teacher-Tested Ways to Find Renewal During Distance Learning

By John Spencer Distance Learning, Podcast, Teacher Life 5 Comments

Last week, I created the following goofy video as a reminder about the differences between teaching in-person and teaching from home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adrezHg-Aj0&t=97s Subscribe to YouTube Channel While this video is a little goofy, it points to a reality that teaching from home is vastly different…

Apr 09 2020

Teachers Have Always Been Amazing But The Quarantine Is Proving Just How Amazing They Are

By John Spencer Creativity, Teacher Life 6 Comments

The last few weeks have proven to society something that we, in education, already know. Teachers care deeply about their students. I’ve seen so many examples of teachers making phone calls to families, having class video conferencing meetings to just do a pulse check on…

Mar 17 2020

Providing Spaces of Permission in the Midst of Uncertainty

By John Spencer Podcast, Teacher Life 4 Comments

I spent hours on Saturday putting together a 3,500 word blog post, an eBook, and a toolkit. Given the stress of the previous days, I knew that sitting down for six hours and doing creative work would allow me to do something I loved while…