Protecting the Teacher AllSpark

Alaina Adams Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Parent Involvment, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Web/Tech, Weblogs

I read Bill Ferriter’s blog this week about the story of Mitchell 20, a movie about 20 Phoenix elementary teachers who chose to pursue National Board certification as a way to take control of the one thing they could control:

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What Do Teachers and Jersey Shore Have in Common?

Alaina Adams Assessment, Books, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Web/Tech

One exhausted night at the end of May 2011, I got sucked into a Jersey Shore marathon and began to wonder if teachers could “GTL” like the overly-tanned and overly-paid reality show MTV characters. According to the oh-so-charming Mike “The

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Reform or Deform: Which is it?

Alaina Adams Assessment, Books, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, National Board Certification, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

  Like its sister-term, “accountability,” the term “reform” has had a few minutes of fame in education this year (see this swell piece by blogger-extraordinaire Nancy Flanagan). Here, Flanagan blatantly opens her piece with the statement, “Hello my name is

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Accomplished Teaching?

Alaina Adams Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

by Alaina As 2010 comes to a close, many of us are reflecting on our accomplishments – and things we’d like to do better in 2011. In education, teachers are doing this same kind of reflection. What is it, though, that

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Why I Teach

Alaina Adams Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mentoring, National Board Certification, Parent Involvment, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership

by Alaina  In a recent InterACT blog post, Kelly Kovacic gave a 90 second summary of why she teaches. In solidarity,  bloggers in Washington and Arizona are posting blogs to pay tribute to why each of us teaches. Why do

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