Recover from Failure with a Dose of Self-Empathy In my classroom, I encourage risk-taking and often reassure my students that making mistakes is an opportunity to learn. However, I do Read More…
Continue Reading

Dr. Thomas L. Benson, a high school principal with twenty-six years of experience as an educator, shares the simple routines that create positive relationships between everyone in the classroom.   Read More…
Continue Reading

Nine years ago, I wrote a short article to explain to myself what it meant to be a Responsive Classroom teacher (which you can read in its entirety below). Here Read More…
Continue Reading

Most people can recall at least one instance in which a teacher showed caring and kindness toward them at just the right moment in their lives. For me, it was Read More…
Continue Reading

Growing up, I always looked forward to Black History Month at my public school in New York City. My teachers taught lessons about Black people who made notable contributions to Read More…
Continue Reading

Centering equity and justice in my teaching practice has taken time and even caused moments of intense self-doubt and feelings of failure. Sometimes these feelings of doubt come from the Read More…
Continue Reading

Black History Month is a critical time to acknowledge the systemic oppression and racism that Black people have experienced in this country while also celebrating their incredible contributions to American Read More…
Continue Reading

For students to belong and feel significant, they need to feel seen for who they really are and get the sense that they can be their authentic selves. Crucially, seeing Read More…
Continue Reading

Recently there has been discussion in our education ranks about how students have not had an uninterrupted school year for over eighteen months. The disruption started at the end of Read More…
Continue Reading

Julie Kelly and Kirsten Howard are Responsive Classroom consulting teachers and contributing authors for the forthcoming Empowering Educators series (Julie worked on Empowering Educators for Grades 3, 4, 5; Kirsten Read More…
Continue Reading

  Empowering Adults to Support Each Other at the Beginning of a New School Year:  A Conversation with Authors Emily Parrelli and Lisa Dewey Wells   Emily Parrelli and Lisa Read More…
Continue Reading

  In the first week of my teaching career, I had a colleague say to me, “You get only one chance to start the year off in a good place Read More…
Continue Reading

In July, the school is quiet. The daily stream of buses has stopped rolling in. Students, educators, and families have signed off from final Zoom meetings. July is a month Read More…
Continue Reading

I recently had the opportunity to reconnect with educators I worked with at the school where I began my teaching career. Many of them came straight from productive days in Read More…
Continue Reading

  All of us, students and teachers alike, approach the end of the school year with a wide variety of feelings. Just as teachers might be feeling burned out right Read More…
Continue Reading

The past year has added so many additional stressors on educators: virtual teaching, juggling teaching formats, and wearing masks, to name a few. Teachers must find ways to manage stress Read More…
Continue Reading

Cultural relevance can be defined as empowering students to maintain cultural integrity while succeeding academically. Culturally responsive teachers and leaders are reflective and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and Read More…
Continue Reading

Picture this: you are in a stressful situation – a really heated moment – and out of your mouth slips a sentence or two that you instantly regret. We’ve all Read More…
Continue Reading

How can we encourage all our students to talk and participate in school each day, with an emphasis on empowering Black and other traditionally marginalized voices? How can we be Read More…
Continue Reading

Reflective teaching is an important tool in helping you examine your role as an educator in order to both celebrate and sharpen the value you bring to teaching. Fundamentally, reflective Read More…
Continue Reading

This time last year, I published an article titled “Building a Positive Community Through Reflection.” The article began with excitement for the start of a new year and a new Read More…
Continue Reading

Helping students create a habit of reflection is an essential step in teaching them how to establish and maintain self-control. But sometimes teachers with positive intentions inadvertently ask questions around Read More…
Continue Reading

Ever since March 23, 2020, when the school where I work, Steel City Academy, transitioned to virtual learning, I’ve found myself constantly asking what education will look like moving forward. Read More…
Continue Reading

The excitement of a new school year generally greets me in a place of confident anticipation. Like the edge pieces of a newly begun jigsaw puzzle, cherished September routines provide Read More…
Continue Reading

Along with new structures and strategies teachers are employing in response to the multitude of changes to their teaching environments, the beginning of this school year is defined by the Read More…
Continue Reading

In early 2018 I presented my first Responsive Classroom course at the American School of Bombay (ASB) in Mumbai, India. This independent day school follows a college preparatory curriculum that supports an Read More…
Continue Reading