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…
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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…
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Teacher language can have a transformative effect not just on your students’ approach to learning, but on your relationship to teaching as well. In the poem below, Julie Kelly reflects Read More…
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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…
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The past two years have undoubtedly shaken up the way I approach teaching. Beginning the 2020–2021 school year virtually produced many daunting questions. How could I build community? How could Read More…
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Traditions feel good. It is why we sing songs that we know well, why we go to the same store each week, and why we drive to work the same Read More…
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Every educator had hoped to begin this school year in a more familiar fashion, but as the year kicks off, it is clear that we are still not even close Read More…
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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…
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In June 2020, the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company released “COVID-19 and Student Learning in the United States” a report that outlined the alarming potential impact of school closures Read More…
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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…
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Recently, my third-grade class and I were reading books about learning challenges and the strategies characters used to overcome them. During our discussions about the books, I wanted to guide Read More…
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As we turn the page to 2021, I find myself reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned and what I want to take with me into the new year.  Throughout 2020, Read More…
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In March of 2020, just before widespread quarantine, I serendipitously attended a silent meditation retreat in the mountains of Tennessee. It was my first real introduction to the teachings of Read More…
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Our students have experienced unprecedented changes in their daily routines and communities. The focused attention on racial injustice after George Floyd’s murder and calls for societal and governmental change at Read More…
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I once observed a classroom where a teacher attempted to gain the attention of a classroom actively and excitedly engaging in a science experiment by using her loudest voice possible Read More…
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It’s important to practice self-care, but doing so on a regular basis can be challenging at the best of times! One way you can develop your own self-care practices, as Read More…
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Showing Students What Is Possible The language we use with students every day influences how they see themselves. Our words can shape students’ views of themselves years after our direct Read More…
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Having productive conversations requires students to listen deeply, reflect on what is said, express ideas clearly, sustain attention, ask insightful questions, debate respectfully, and develop comprehension of information taken in. Read More…
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It’s the start of a new year! Day one is either right around the corner or has just recently taken place. The beginning of the year is filled with so Read More…
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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” –Frederick Douglass This famous quote, printed on bright pink cardstock and posted above the whiteboard of a third grade classroom, stood Read More…
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Taking proactive steps to build a strong learning community, with practices like positive teacher language, interactive modeling, and investing students in rules through Hopes and Dreams, does a lot to Read More…
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In 1991, Ruth Charney, co-founder of Responsive Classroom, wrote a book that impacted K-8 educators all over the world, Teaching Children to Care. A reflection of her 20-year teaching career Read More…
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As the bustle of the after-school and after-work hours wound down for the night, I found my eight-year-old daughter in tears in her bedroom. She was hunched over her sketch Read More…
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“As their teachers, we hold in our hearts our own hopes and dreams for [our students]. We want them to engage in academic rigor and to be ideamongers who contribute Read More…
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Children who defy us often get to the core of our fears as teachers. They make us question our abilities and provoke feelings of insignificance. But when we rise above our own…
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From your “Good morning” greeting to your “Good-bye” at the last bell, every school day gives you many opportunities to address students with words that give them an image of themselves as…
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