This passage is from Herbert Kohl’s “The Open Classroom”: “Lesson plans are supposed to spell out what the teacher is going to do in his classroom day to day, week to week, and even month to month. They are designed to make it possible for administrators to say what ought to be happening at a […]
This is to inform the group that we have a colleague, fellow group member in Senegal so maybe if everyone knows Rachel is there we can keep her on our radar to help in any way possible. She is doing important work: Hi Ben and Tina! My name is Rachael Cox, and I am a
Sleep deprivation in the U.S. is a true thing. It is bad when teachers can’t sleep and then have to be all bright eyed and bushytailed in the morning, especially since our work with stories requires cheerfulness, even fake cheerfulness (fake it ’till you make it…) to be effective. I don’t sleep much at all.
Hi guys, Yesterday, I started my advanced class off with FCR like I always do and that was great. Then I started to chat about the weekend and the calendar like I always do and I quickly realized that my students were “off”. They interrupted me about 10 times in a span of 4 minutes
I just wanted to share that Sean Lawler has joined our group. It’s a big deal and it makes me very happy and I will tell you why: Sean goes back in this group at least 10 years. In previous iterations of this blog he was a true and constant leader, spurring on conversation after
Here is a question for the group: I have been using the “Ben Slavic Classroom Rules” for about 8 years. BUT. They do not address things that I need to address in this school that still feels like it’s on a different planet. For example, I feel like I need the following rules in addition
Dana Miller Kitch, from Canada, replaced me at the American Embassy School in India this year (2017-2018) and it was very good to know that a CI teacher was going to be there for those wonderful middle schoolers. (Tina and I worked with Dana in training her on the Invisibles before she went to India
Greg promised a Power Point Presentation we can all use and here it is with many thanks to Greg: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Jk0yDZyZS_7RuTS11lybO8hR2awwuc9D1woCaFd98DM/edit#slide=id.p Another link:
It would be nice to get some group responses on this from Meg: Hi Ben, On Friday I talked to my administration and my classroom management issues came up (it is my 2nd year). Admin said that they agree with TCI philosophy, but believe that teaching with CI “is not conducive to management because the
We wish Greg good luck in his Edcamp initiative today. Greg reports: “This Saturday 12/9/17 will be Edcamp Lake County in Mundelein, Illinois (I am one of two organizers), within Edcamp we will be having a TPRS/CI room in which the Chicagoland TCI group will meet. The Chicagoland TCI group is run by this blog’s
There are fettered and unfettered responses to discipline problems. A fettered response would take into consideration all sorts of factors like who said it, the tone of voice, the history of the kid’s involvement in class, the kid’s grade, who their parents are, if the administration likes them, if they are a cheerleader or a
I got this from Alisa: Hi Ben, I searched ‘Bitchy Edge’ on the PLC and got the thread from 2010 with Susie Gross where you are clarifying what is and isn’t an ‘Eclectic Teacher.’ I don’t recall ever reading it before, so thanks – it was awesome, and apparently I too was a non-textbook toting
