Looking Back Over a Decade
A reflection on the last ten years….
Ruminating on Safe Spaces, White Privilege and the Kitchen Sink in My Brain
Women’s March in Philadelphia! A photo posted by MB (@mbteach) on Jan 21, 2017 at 8:12am PST After spending all morning at the Women’s March on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with two toddlers, my friends and I decided to grab some lunch on our way home. While sitting and enjoying some much needed food, we…
Things Are Falling Apart
As I watched the video of the murder of Alton Sterling by police officers in Baton Rouge, LA and the video of the murder of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, MN and then watched videos of protests and then social media posts of the shooting of police from a rooftop at a Dallas protest, I got the tugging…
Farewell to an Inspiring Educator and Friend
My friend, Deven Black, was murdered in a homeless shelter in NYC on Wednesday night. To be honest, I’m not sure exactly when I first met Deven, though I am 99% sure that we started talking over Twitter and met face to face at Educon. I never knew that Deven suffered from mental health issues….
A Conversation About Teacher Retention With Acting Secretary of Education, John King
I was honored today to take part in the first “Tea with Teachers” round table discussion of 2016 focused around teacher retention. While Acting Secretary John King was the host, he mostly listened and asked questions. With only an hour to discuss such an important issue in education, it felt as though a lot was left…
The Hot New Education Trend That No One is Talking About
Definition from Oxford Dictionaries This past week I have been spending a lot of time with some really smart educators from all over the country. While the premise of this convening was the enormous edtech conference, ISTE, I spent less time talking about tech tools and awesome apps and more time talking about equity, school…
On Motherhood and Teaching
It has been almost a year since my last post here. What a year it has been…. As many of you know, I had a son in July. Since then, my whole world has revolved around him and managing being a mom and a teacher. Anyone who is a teacher or knows a teacher, knows…
Hey, We Started a School!
It was 3:00pm on June 20th, the last day of school. The inaugural staff of SLA@Beeber sat around the huge conference table in the main office going over highlights and areas for growth for next year. We picked apart processes, events, successes, failures and made suggestions for next year. We discussed our capacity as a…
The 2014 ASCD Annual Conference: There is Hope
Reflecting on a busy weekend of conversation and learning at this year’s annual ASCD conference in Los Angeles, a few bright spots stand out for me. I attended ASCD two years ago in Philadelphia and I couldn’t help but notice that while conversations haven’t necessarily shifted too much (school leadership, school transformations, teaching strategies, assessment,…
Giving Students Freedom
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a report card conference with one of my advisees discussing his classes, his school work and some struggles he’d been having. At one point he said, “I think I’m taking advantage of the freedom I have.” It was a powerful statement and a one that really stuck…
