Those in the group who have worked with Sabrina know how great she is with kids, how completely devoted she is to her students and how hard she works to make her class an enjoyable experience for them. It might come as a surprise, then, to read the following from her: Hi Ben – You […]

John Bracey rocks Latin and for those who are not aware of the tidal waves he is causing in his school you may want to read one or two of these articles before reading his current Report from the Field below: https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-john-bracey/ https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-john-bracey-2/  https://benslavic.com/blog/response-to-john-braceys-report/ Hi Ben, I just had a really interesting experience applying for

Nathaniel Hardt shares something revolutionary below when he suggests that there may be a way to plan our instruction/curricula that actually reflects how time and people interface in an academic year in school buildings, because there are different time periods that are shared in the collective unconscious of each group of people in each building

Now. OK tomorrow. I am being cereal about this. Don’t instruct them. Be with them. Talk to them. When you think you are teaching them, then they perceive that they are being taught, and a cycle of “I’m-the-teacher-and-I’m-the-smartest-and-if-you-listen-to-me-then-you-learn-the-language” kicks in, complete with testing and the whole pathetic school thing. It is impossible to teach a

Michael Coxon wrote in a comment this morning: I had one of the most restful weekends I have had in a long time. The last 4 nights I slept well over 40 hours. This is an accomplishment for me and I went in very refreshed on a Monday morning. During my morning routine I was

This is an interesting time of year for teachers. We are exhausted from fighting on behalf of our convictions of what best practices look like. We are exhausted from trying to implement a method that is still taking form in our classrooms and in the world. And yet, if we are not too exhausted, we

Eric posted this today. As I read it, I reflected that in it lies the core defining principle for everything I personally have tried to do in education: “. . . educators might stop worrying about how to transmit information, and concentrate instead on how to make learning enjoyable, because only when going to school

John Piazza makes a subtle but great point below. I am going to change my rules poster to reflect what he says: Ben, I just heard about a helpful practice on our Latin Best Practices list, from a fellow Latin teacher, Corrado Russo, a member of this PLC. When he wants to check comprehension, instead

Don’t go too wide. It is common to think that our kids, because they perform so well, can do things with sounds and words in the form of reading that they haven’t seen. But they can’t. They can only understand and read what they have heard and worked on before, plus a little extra in

I like to think about how I taste the words when I speak to my students. The food I present in class must taste good to me and to them. Are the words I say tasty? Do they convey happiness? Do they have little sprinkles on them? Or do I say the words too fast