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Blog Post: Why do you stay?

I don’t make sweeping generalizations because they are always wrong, but if you are a teacher, people have wondered why you actually do that. The curiosity about WHY on EARTH you would choose this profession is so deep-seated that we even ask it of each other in job interviews. I mean think about that for a second. Can you imagine at NASA: “So Christina, why did you decide to become an astronaut?” Sitting before the medical review board: “What motivated you to become a neurosurgeon?” I guess I don’t really know – perhaps they do ask that sort of question, but it just feels kind of unlikely. My husband’s an electrical engineer who works on fighter planes, and I promise you he has never had to justify to anyone why he chose THAT particular career path. Yet I have justified my career path to everyone from job interviews to grant applications to friends at cocktail parties, and every single time everyone’s left feeling unsatisfied. I can feel them want
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Episode 26: All My Messes Live in Texas: The Special Education Cap in Texas

In 2016 the Houston Chronicle published a report claiming that the Texas Education Agency had imposed a "special education cap" on the percentage of a district's students that could be classified as special education. In 2018 the US Department of Education completed its investigation and found that Texas had indeed illegally set this cap at 8.5% and that this cap had caused qualified students to be denied services. On today's podcast we talk about how,  yep, this is totally a thing ,  a thing that we have experienced in our years of education, the students that were denied services because of this cap, and where we think this misguided, illegal policy came from. We discuss why it is so vitally important that we serve our special education students, what is going on with dyslexia services in Texas, and where we go from here. If you work in special education, we'd love to hear from you! Comment on this blog, on our Facebook page, or email us at realtalkinte
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Episode 25: Intervention with gifted and talented students

Your at-risk student is looking for your support. Your GT student is looking for a challenge. We've talked a lot about intervention for your struggling students, but what do you do when you have gifted and talented students who are struggling? The struggle may look different when you're working with advanced courses and high achieving students, but the struggle is real all the same. Today on the podcast we have veteran AP teacher, multiple Teacher of the Year winner Valerie Minor on to talk about how she intervenes and differentiates for advanced students as well as what she's learned in her transition into a special education co-teach setting this year. You can listen to the podcast here or follow us and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Give us a like on Facebook, rate or review us, and please share! We love to hear from our listeners!
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Episode 24: Why do you STAY a teacher?

All of us have been asked the question at one point or another. What made you decide to become a teacher? You've been asked it in job interviews, where the right answer seemed critical. You've been asked it by incredulous family members, where the right answer seemed impossible. You've been asked it by students, where the right answer seemed loaded. We've all got our response memorized. Whether that response reflects your deeply felt, inspirational path into the classroom, the safe-for-work, sanitized version of your winding road towards respectability, or is simply a rehearsed tale that carefully avoids saying "I don't know why I do half the things I do." I don't know about you, but I'm bored by my story. It's not particularly inspirational, and, frankly, it's not particularly interesting. You want to see into a teacher's soul? Don't ask us why we started. Ask us why we  stay .  Why do we stay in a career that
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Blog Post: What Happens After

What Happens After... 2/14/2018 5:50 PM Another 10 hour day….I never knew I would have to wear so many hats at one job. Exhausted, I walk in the door of my home and fall onto the couch. Time to switch off, turn on Facebook, pictures of cats and babies.  Only instead of a smiling baby, there’s a woman embracing a child. She has an ash cross on her forehead and her mouth, silenced by the photograph, screams only in my mind…not my child….not mine!  My husband interrupts my moment of national connected horror. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve all had the flu for the last month, and we finally have a babysitter and a night to go out to see The Greatest Showman.  9:45 PM   Humming “This is Me”, I wait for my husband to get out of the bathroom, and what else would I do in 2018? I grab my phone, mindless scrolling time.  The reactions are starting to feel familiar.  Thoughts and prayers.  Thoughts and prayers don’t work.  Stop trying to capitalize on a tragedy.  Gun control do
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Episode 23: The Curious Case of Gender in Educational Leadership

 In the midst of our wider, cultural conversation about women, and power, and leadership, and power, let us pause for a moment to consider the quite curious case of gender in education. Of course, education is an historically female driven profession - for much of the last century it was, in fact, one of the few jobs a woman could even realistically perform. That history continues to influence our profession today. 76% of classroom teachers remain women.  As women slowly take on larger and larger roles in industries all over this country, education sits as an - actually rather large - island. An experiment if you will, of sorts - an enormous, functioning machine -  a bureaucracy, a power structure - inhabited almost exclusively by women.  The lazy among us often joke how the world would be different, how much better it would be, if it could be run by women.  Well, education gives us a glimpse into what that world might actually be like.   And apparently we'd j
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Episode 22: Your Educational Technology WishList

Well my friends and colleagues, welcome to 2018! Welcome to the second half of our year ... the LAST half of our year! Are you back at work? Are you sitting in professional development? Are you currently being trained on the latest piece of life changing #edtech that your district has bought for you? Don't you wish you could find a piece of educational technology that would ACTUALLY change your life? What are the things that you wish edtech would for you? On today's episode we talk about what we wish tech could do for us as teachers, what pieces of technology we're currently finding helpful for at-risk students, and ask the question most won't dare to ask - do our millennial students actually prefer digital learning opportunities? Give us a listen and share your experiences with educational technology here on our blog. Listen to our episode above, or find us on iTunes. If you like our show we appreciate likes and reviews on iTunes.
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