As a teacher, you have been through all the training. You buy into it, you embrace it, you are as “trauma informed” as possible. You know about ACEs, toxic stress, and restorative justice. Your classroom reflects all of the best practices that we know. You always ensure that Maslow comes before Bloom and you know that in order to learn students must have the executive functioning capable of doing so.

And it works. You have seen it work and have seen students make great strides in every aspect of their schooling: attendance, behavior, academics, and social skills. You are a believer.

Until the new student arrives.

Which works better for students...competition between peers to motivate them to try harder or cooperation between them in order for them to learn from one another. This has been a bit of a “debate” in the education world, which I feel is unfortunate.

This kind of “either/or” thinking is very common in our country right now. You are either “red” or “blue.” You are either “woke” or lost in the past. You are either a “believer” or you are not. There are many reasons for these stark divisions we see in our world and the “either/or” mentality is one that is prevalent amongst many people. It even happens in education...think about the phonics vs. whole language debate, the direct instruction vs. constructivist learning debate, or the controversy of whether students should learn cursive or not. Dichotomies like this can, in my opinion, be very harmful to really examining an issue.

In education, we often hear how we need to be more business minded. In the education world that is not always our natural inclination. And while I feel there is some truth to this, as evidenced in this article, I do believe it is worth saying that the model of public education is much different than most models found in the private sector.

That is not to say there aren't business principles that we could use to help improve the educational experience for students. I do think there are things to be learned from the “business world.” Marketing strategies are one of these principles.

Most of the time, we don't think about marketing when it comes to our schools. Every school is an essence in a competition for students. Because of this, telling the story of what makes us better than the alternatives is important. Schools where I have worked did not have large public relations budgets, or even personnel, but that is not to say there are ways that schools can make an impact when it comes to engaging and meeting the needs of their consumers.

Keeping schools safe is the number one concern of everyone involved in education.  Without safe classrooms and schools, students cannot learn.  And if the worst were to happen, students can be lives can be threatened. 

Schools have taken this very seriously as the number of violent incidents in schools has increased.  Layers and layers of specific safety measures are now part of the day to day operation of schools. 

The impact this has on students and teachers is probably a good topic for another time. For our discussion, it is important to note that state and national agencies have taken a much broader view of keeping our schools safer than some of the visible measures that impact the daily lives of teachers.  This support has given school districts a framework for how to think about crisis planning.

Teachers vacate positions and the teaching profession for many different reasons. In our region, teachers are hard to come by and positions are often difficult to fill. As a result, all schools should consider the best ways to not only recruit great teachers, but to also retain the ones that we already have.

As we start to think about how we could better retain teachers, we usually think first about our pay scale. Teacher contracts and pay scales are, for the most part, not very flexible. In larger urban areas, the market demand for teachers is much higher than the supply. Pay differences aren’t big enough to persuade teachers to come or to stay, so there must be other intangibles they can be used in order to recruit and retain the best of the best.

There are so many “things” in a classroom. And no, we are not calling our students things. Consider all the supplies, textbooks, technology tools, cleaning supplies, and visuals on the wall—and this doesn’t even get us started on the living things in the room. 

I have written in the past about how complex our classrooms are. This is a real challenge for our teachers and, I feel, adds to their stress, burnout, and sometimes their eventual departure from the profession. There are many solutions to help with this, but the one we will focus on for this article is automation.

Technology has allowed for us to automate more and more of our processes. The advantage of this is that we don’t have to think as much about the mundane and routine tasks that we need to complete. The disadvantage of this is that, at times, we think we can automate everything. Education cannot be automated—regardless of how strong the technology is. The relationship between a teacher and a student is the foundation of the student’s learning; without this relationship, learning can’t happen in the same way.

There are some people in our country who claim that public schools have a monopoly on the educational market. I personally believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

Public schools are the primary means of educating students in the U.S. Despite this fact, the past decade has seen a significant increase in students attending private and charter schools or being homeschooled. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (a division of the U.S. Department of Education), the number of students enrolled in public school has dropped from 74% to 69% since 1999. Enrollment for charter schools and homeschooling has increased during this time, while private school enrollment has remained relatively flat.

With one in five children being affected by a mental health disorder, mental health is the most common health issue among children in the U.S. today. American students spend about one-sixth of their waking hours in school, which puts much of the weight of identifying and supporting students’ mental health on the shoulders of teachers. Teachers already hold so many torches in their schools and classrooms, and coming up with ideas to support students can be a challenging task.

While February is a short month, it still has so much to offer! Black History Month, Valentine's Day, and Presidents' Day provide an array of interesting facts, people, and history to weave into your lessons throughout the month.

Here is our collection of themed content to engage your students in February:

Bringing students on field trips to museums can be invaluable to their education, but if you don’t live in or near a major city, it can be difficult to find local museums to visit. Luckily, technology has made it possible to access world-class museums right from the comfort of your own classroom with digital learning resources. Because there are so many museums in the U.S. to search through for valuable resources, we’ve highlighted some of the most prestigious museums and their online resources below.