Public Impact, December 13, 2021
We wish you all happy holidays and a rejuvenating winter break; we continue to hear from Opportunity Culture educators across the country about how very challenging this school year has been for many of you. If you would like to share your story, please email me so we can chat briefly, to include in a future newsletter. Thank you!
By Casey Jackson, first published by EdNC, May 18, 2021
“Can you please be my coach?”
With tears rolling down her cheeks, this was what a young, second-year teacher asked me in the middle of a professional development session in 2018.
I was sitting at a table with new faces, in a new state, in a new role as a multi-classroom leader (MCL) in Vance County, North Carolina. The session presenter had asked us to role-play a guided-reading lesson, and this young woman had bravely volunteered to play the role of teacher. As the others played the students, I played the teacher’s coach. Although I had some administrative experience helping teachers, I had not yet gone through MCL training to learn how to appropriately coach the teaching team I would lead. Read more…
By Sidney Thomas, first published by The Baltimore Times, April 30, 2021
A tweet I saw asking teachers to share one book they would recommend for new teachers jolted me back to my first year of teaching in 2008. My school gave me a copy of The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong, told me to read it, and then released me into the classroom to figure out how to be an effective teacher.
The book was my only “support” that year. Whenever I asked for additional help to become a better teacher, I was told to go back to that book. Yet, even after rereading it, I still struggled. Read more…
Some parents are creating home-based, closed groups of a few families’ children to learn together under the rotating supervision of parents or a paid supervisor. Pods could keep students’ learning and social-emotional development on track while helping protect their and their teachers’ health. Read more…
By Steven Kennedy; first published by EducationNC, February 24, 2020
Opportunity Culture kept me from leaving the classroom.
When our first child was born, my wife and I discussed our goals. There was just no way I was going to be able to support our family by being a teacher in North Carolina. It wasn’t what we wanted our family life to look like. Read more…
By Staci Bunn; first published by EducationNC, November 9, 2017
“You didn’t give up. And you listened a lot—you understood where I was coming from.” Multi-Classroom Leader® Stacie Bunn interviews her team teacher, Expanded-Impact Teacher Kenyetta Davenport, about how Bunn’s support helped her zoom from being put on an action plan to becoming teacher of the year. Read More…