Teaching Beneath the Cracks

04/21/2024

Views from my hammock.

10/23/2022

From October 2021. It's Beau!

04/01/2020

I'd like to hear from teachers of any group of students who want to share their experience with making the transition to digital learning. Equally important, I'd like teachers who've never taught in alternative education to reflect on the issues faced by those teaching students "not successful" in regular settings.

We who teach are beginning to see under present circumstances how inadequate is the noun transition - as in transition to digital learning.

12/13/2019

There's still a bit of work to be done, but I'm pleased with our hall display, Resistance to Slavery. Please take a few moments to watch the slideshow.

This is an interactive display with a word wall containing both terms and definitions, a comprehensive timeline of key events from 1565-1865. (The Spanish brought enslaved Africans to Ft. Lauderdale more than a half-century prior to the Dutch selling human flesh in Jamestown.)

There is some Indiana history included as we challenge people to compare the map of African-American farming communities, (Free Black Settlements), with that of known routes of the Underground Railroad.

Also compelling is the use of images that form the border of the display. We'll be adding a guide to each picture.

The final component will be a series of pockets on which essential questions about the topic will be asked. Inside each pocket will be information a student can use to answer the question.

12/07/2019

When you think about alternative education, the Multi-Tiered Support System, (MTSS), lies at the heart of a high-speed program. But thinking about the state of your program's MTSS process can be analogous to thinking about your diet and exercise resolutions during the holidays. It can be painful. We humans tend to be much better at avoidance behaviors than serious introspection.

Rather than blithely seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and saying no evil, there's a long-term payoff in asking - and truthfully answering - those tough questions about the process that should be driving your alternative ed programs day-to-day delivery of services.

To find out if an alternative ed program is effectively using the MTSS framework, you have to endure a high-stress process in an already high-stress environment. It may not be fun in the short-term, but all of us should be playing our best long-game.

11/10/2019

I'll begin with a caveat, that being that the article I'm posting comes from the right-wing think tank, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Their ties to ALEC, (American Legislative Exchange Council), are well documented, so be careful to not be drawn into this largely anti-public-education group's propaganda. Still, the theme of the article is, in my view, spot-on when it comes to students who struggle with reading.

Take note of the passage the mentions how the social studies have been minimalized, especially in elementary grades, in the stunningly self-defeating hopes of boosting reading test scores. I witnessed this myself while guest teaching nearly a decade ago when NCLB was in its full, destructive grip upon curriculum gurus.

For those of us who teach economically disadvantaged students with very limited experiences of enrichment quite common to children of middle-class families, schema must be a daily consideration when selecting reading strategies.

What’s the best way to help students who are several grade levels behind? We can’t answer that question without first understanding what “grade level” means. Math and reading are quite different when it comes to assessing grade level, and I’m going to focus on reading.

11/07/2019

Teachers of American history, when you teach the concepts associated with the causes of the Civil War, explaining the differences between those opposed to slavery and abolitionists can be tricky. Here's a good entry point for just such a conversation.

It was on this date in 1837 when abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, Illinois by members of a pro-slavery mob.

While there was a sizeable number of anti-slavery activists at the time of Lovejoy's death, abolitionists were then a distinctly small, but a vocal minority among those opposed to slavery.

Still, violence against abolitionists was common, often combined with white riots in Free Black neighborhoods.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837), a native of Albion, Maine, was murdered in Alton, Illinois by a pro-slavery mob on November 7, 1837 while defending his right to promote the abolition of slavery in...

10/27/2019

My initial urge was to write a lofty post about the importance of students being able to see relatable images in their classrooms. To be honest, though, I really just want to show off my new posters that adorn the wall of my own classroom.

I teach social studies to middle school teachers in Indianapolis and my students displayed a real interest in the characters. Most students knew the identity of all three. Two of these spectacular persons have direct ties to Indiana.

Douglass, still subject to arrest and return to bo***ge, was a dynamic speaker in the employ of William Lloyd Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society when he spoke in Richmond and Pendleton.

Pro-slavery thugs booed and egged Douglass and others from their Richmond platform. An even more violent mob hurled brickbats at abolitionist speakers, including Douglass, during their Pendleton appearance. Douglass, a big man who once beat down a "slave-breaker" in Maryland, was nevertheless seized by the pro-slavery agitators and beaten, rescued only after locals intervened.

Madam CJ Walker, though not born in Indiana, made her mark while in Indianapolis where her hair care products were manufactured and then sold by homemakers cm entrepreneurs recruited by Walker.

My personal favorite of the new additions is of the truly incomparable Harriet Tubman, pictured in her later years. Any single act of her intrepid accomplishments is worthy of remembrance and honor and only recently is the full depth of her bravery becoming widely known.

10/14/2019

http://teachingbeneaththecracks.com/columbus-day-and-why-historians-revise/

It is foolish to accept that each generation is free from its own blind spots, or more accurately, biases and prejudices. For that reason, the study of history must include a healthy dose of revision as these predispositions favoring power are recognized and mitigated.