Hold My Chalk

I have missed a few weeks with a chaotic start to the year.  Today is Friday the 13th and a full moon so for all of you that are superstitious or believe the lunar cycle has significant impact on your students' behavior I wish you well as you navigate this day.  I believe that weather, light, seasons and astronomic cycles may have some impact on biologic activity, but the most important influencer of students is the teacher in the classroom.  With that out of the way here are the posts and links that caught my attention this week.  I hope some of them serve you well. This first tweet has me reviewing some of the things I have always told teachers about their beginning of the year practices.  I have always believed that relationships are the most important part of what we do as educators, so rules without relationships is the equivalent of a dictatorship. What role will your posted Rules & Expectations play in your classroom this year? Your answer matters. pi...

When it comes to professional learning, who is in charge?  For years the term was professional development, but that has come to have a negative connotation to it.  Think about it, when someone says they have to attend a professional development session, you almost cringe for them. You do this because the first thing that comes to mind is blood-borne pathogens, workman's comp or hazardous communications workshops.  This feeling is shared across many professions. But what if it didn't have to be that way? It doesn't! Before you try to correct me, I am fully aware that there is a certain amount of compliance based training that we all must go through.  I don't consider that professional development or professional learning for several reasons.  First, there is very little, if any, learning that occurs after that first year of compliance.  Second, very few of those compliance courses were designed for true development/learning in your profession.  They ar...