The Russian invasion of Ukraine this week is resulting in images in the media of buildings exploding in fire, people bloodied and injured from missile attacks, and fearful children and parents getting in cars and buses to flee to safety. It is difficult to watch but hard to ignore. That is the case for children and teenagers as well as adults.

1. First and foremost, consider the developmental and age levels of your students

Talking about issues like war looks very different with high school students than it does with elementary school children. The horrifying pictures already emerging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine might be OK to share with high school students because they are seeing similar images on the news. But educators of younger children need to be more careful about how they talk about war and what images they show, even though kids in the digital era likely have easy access to information about the situation. “With younger kids, you usually want to take your cues from the kids themselves—as far as how much they are seeing and hearing, whether they understand the things that they’re seeing and hearing, and then offering them some ideas and possibilities for how to manage or cope with their emotions,” advises Kathleen Minke, the executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists, in a recent interview with Education Week.

2. Encourage students to feel a sense of agency about how they can make a difference

Minke emphasizes that people of any age will feel a greater sense of hopefulness if they feel like they can do something to help others. Of course, that could be very difficult and complicated in this moment regarding the situation in Ukraine, because it is such a fluid, unpredictable environment. But brainstorming with students about how they could help—maybe rallying community members to donate to international aid groups such as the Red Cross—might be a good start.

3. Explain why it is important to pay attention to what is happening in other parts of the world

“The crisis is a great opportunity for teachers to do a few things. One is to explain: Something that’s happening across the world in Europe, why does this matter to some young person in the United States, or to the United States?” said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on international relations and foreign policy. The group also publishes curriculum and simulation resources for high school and college educators. “In order to be an informed citizen, one needs to be globally literate. One needs to understand why the world matters, how it works, how foreign policy affects the world.”

4. Pose nuanced, objective questions to high school students about the crisis

Asking nuanced questions and encouraging students to evaluate different sources of information to develop their own answers to those questions can be a path forward, said Emma Humphries, the chief education officer at iCivics, a nonprofit that promotes civics education and provides educational resources for teachers. Haass adds that getting students to this place where they can wrestle with these questions of foreign policy is a process. “Once you absorb [why international affairs matter], either in principle or specifically, you can go on to: What are the options? What are the potential tools? What should be our priorities? What costs should we be willing to pay?”

5. Share stories of what regular people are experiencing

It’s important for students to hear the voices of everyday people, said Jody Sokolower, the co-coordinator of the Teach Palestine Project at the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Sokolower, a former managing editor at Rethinking Schools, also edited Teaching About the Wars, that organization’s guide to teaching about the Iraq war and U.S. involvement in the Middle East. “Traditionally, history is taught in terms of kings and presidents and military leaders,” she said. “And if you look at history in terms of who are the people and who are the movements, what were the issues that they were confronting and how were they trying to fight for more freedom, it really casts things in a different light.”

References: https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-to-talk-with-students-about-the-russia-ukraine-war-5-teaching-tips/2022/02?fbclid=IwAR1522Et7J00vAA_HOuNEFdTU3tdUndmucvNapkAVPM8VSCkoRwZizGjGM8

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that guides educators in designing learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners. It helps teachers move from a one-size-fits-all approach toward one that adapts to learner variability. UDL embraces the idea that we should have firm goals for students—using flexible means to reach those goals. The result is more equitable and engaging classrooms.

How do I know Ted would embrace UDL?

At its core, UDL is a mindset, or set of beliefs, that guides educators in everything they do. And Ted has that mindset. It’s all about believing—in students and their potential; in the importance of the process as much as the result; and in the power of continual growth, reflection, and lifelong learning.

BEGIN BY EMBRACING FOUR BELIEFS

While we become teachers to positively impact students, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with day-to-day challenges, especially in these past few years. Still, ask any teacher, and they’ll say that the goal of education is more than just helping students acquire and regurgitate knowledge. Instead, we want to equip children with tools for success—show them how to reach their goals and prepare them for ever-changing jobs and a world we can’t quite imagine. So how can we do this?

I won’t pretend it’s easy, but it’s crucial to commit to the UDL mindset in order to have success. Embracing the following four beliefs is the first step in designing learning experiences that serve all students.

1. All students can reach the high expectations we set. When we set firm goals for all students, we’re sending the message that we believe they’re capable. We start by clearly identifying the goals we’re focusing on. Then, reflect honestly: Do we truly believe that every student can reach these goals?

As a teacher, I involved students in tracking and monitoring their goals by creating digital Data Notebooks where we tracked academic, behavioral, and other goals. We had frequent one-on-one check-ins and monitored these together. These opportunities to conference around goals made them more manageable and helped us all stay committed to them.

2. Barriers to success exist in the system, not in the students. After firm goals are set, we need to recognize that external barriers can prevent students from being successful. Therefore, we need to be flexible by providing multiple pathways for students to reach their goals. When planning, we can ask ourselves, “What barriers might arise within each of these factors: curriculum, teaching methods, resources, materials, and assessments?”

When teaching, I aimed to address many barriers before we began a unit. Sometimes students didn’t have background knowledge, so we’d cover relevant topics and skills at the start. Other times, content wasn’t academically interesting or culturally relevant, so we found ways to tie it to their lives. I realized that many students needed clearer directions, checklists, and check-ins, so I created systems within our classroom to address this.

3. Learner variability is the norm, so a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.We can empower students with choices and autonomy so that they can overcome those barriers and reach their goals. This belief allows us to embrace the three UDL principles that help us design more accessible, inclusive, and engaging learning experiences:

• Multiple means of engagement: Learners vary in how they are motivated and want to engage in learning, so we can provide multiple options for engagement.
• Multiple means of representation: Learners perceive and comprehend information differently, so we can provide multiple options for acquiring knowledge.
• Multiple means of action and expression: Learners vary in how they navigate learning and express what they know, so we can provide multiple options for them to demonstrate learning.

We can put these principles into practice in many ways. Are there opportunities for students to have choice in what topic they study and how they take in information (reading, listening, watching)? Can we create scaffolds for students? Or offer choices in how they demonstrate their learning?

When I created units, I started by looking at our goals and brainstorming ways in which I could offer students autonomy that would still lead them to those goals. Sometimes, they chose their own text or topic. Other times, I offered materials in multiple modalities for them to choose from: reading, watching, and/or listening. Lastly, I saw so much creativity and engagement when students had a choice over how they demonstrated their learning—for example, choosing between a written response, a slide presentation, or a video.

4. Continual self-reflection leads to lifelong, expert learners. There’s a lot of uncertainty around the future of work and our world. We know that the ability to learn is crucial. The ultimate goal of UDL is to develop “expert learners” who are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed. Even though this approach may make us nervous, when we show trust by giving students choices, when we teach them how to reflect on those choices and their work, and when we value growth as much as results, we are developing expert learners.

In my teaching, I focused on creating an environment where students felt safe and valued. To emphasize growth, I offered opportunities for revisions rather than only grading final work. I built reflection questions into both our end-of-unit review and our everyday work, mainly through exit tickets. Students practiced reflecting on their work and their choices: If they could do the assignment over again, would they have made the same choices? Why or why not?

START SMALL

Of course there’s more to great teaching, preparing our students for the future, and applying UDL than these four beliefs, but it’s only if we hold these beliefs that the other pieces then fall into place.

With so much on their plates, many teachers are feeling overwhelmed right now. It’s OK to start small: Commit every day to having high expectations for all students. Believe in them. You can print out this 4 Beliefs poster and put it on your desk. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. While it may not seem like you’re doing much, you’ll be able to feel a difference. And better yet, so will your students. Over time, believing in your students can lead to their believing in themselves, which is a gift that’ll last a lifetime.

Reference: https://www.edutopia.org/article/4-principles-universal-design-learning-approach?fbclid=IwAR2x-khr5ru1aWk02h-87nerOT8pcO2nxSLzIZ3WIy-PnJGERE9FNv5-39U

The burden of teaching is bittersweet – it’s one of the greatest jobs in the world and also one of the most misunderstood. Most everyone passes through the school system, but unless you’ve been a teacher, it’s hard to understand our day-to-day realities. There are many things I wish I could say to parents or guardians; many things I wish I could make them understand. Here, in no specific order, are a few of the things I wish my families understood.

1. I am a teacher, not a parent

I cannot count the number of times a parent or guardian has come into a conference at their wit’s end with their unruly adolescent. The parent says something along the lines of “I just can’t get him to do anything at home. How do I get him to do his homework?” I wish I had a magic bullet for this situation, but I don’t. My degree is in education, and while all teachers have taken some child psychology classes and many are parents ourselves, we are not parenting experts.

2. I want our relationship to be a partnership

Many students come to my classroom without an involved adult figure in the home. These children need food, shoes, deodorant, help filling out their FAFSA or finding their birth certificate. Will I step into an advocate role if need be? Of course. But a student who doesn’t have their basic needs met at home will have a hard time learning much in school.

3. I cannot force your child to learn

Teaching and learning are two separate things. I love to teach and have trained to do it well. But your child must meet me halfway. For learning to occur, students have to be receptive. They have to try, they have to apply themselves, and they have to do the work. The most successful students have learned a growth mindset and resiliency in the face of difficult tasks.

4. You need to make sure they go to sleep on time

According to the Healthy Sleep website, from the Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine, “Lack of adequate sleep affects mood, motivation, judgment, and our perception of events.” Healthy sleep habits include a calming bedtime routine and a bedtime that allows students to get at least eight hours of sleep. We know that electronics like TV, phones, and tablets negatively affect sleep, because the blue light they emit suppresses melatonin and disrupt circadian rhythms. Take the phones away and turn off the TV before bed.

5. You have no secrets

If you say something within earshot of your children, the chances of them telling us are really high. They do repeat everything you say at home. I promise we tactfully try to change the subject, but teachers are often involuntary recipients of all sorts of personal family information.

6. I am exhausted but for the sake of your child, I try not to show it

I love my job, I do. But it has me up at 5 a.m. and in bed past midnight most nights. I stay up late grading papers or worrying about students who are not succeeding in class. I stay late to chaperone prom or cheer on my students at volleyball games. Several nights a week, I am in the school building for 12 or more hours at a time before falling into bed, just to get up and do it all over again the next day.

7. Sometimes kids don’t need tough love, they just need love

Of course children need discipline – I would never argue otherwise. But sometimes, it’s okay to give your kids a break. Trust me, no one is harder on a student for that failed science test than the student themselves.

8. The most important skill your child will ever learn is empathy

I genuinely believe that learning empathy and social-emotional skills are more important than the content I teach. Sure, knowing how to format a paper or find the circumference of a circle matter, but at the end of the day, I care a whole lot more about whether my students are kind, decent human beings.

9. I do all of my grading – all of it – on my unpaid time

Grading is an overwhelming task for all teachers everywhere, and we are given very little time on the clock to do any work that isn’t actually teaching. I have an hour of prep time each day, and in this single hour, I am expected to plan the next day’s classes, make copies, respond to emails, grade papers, enter grades, and post lessons on my classroom website. Something’s got to give, so I prep at school and grade at home in the evenings and on weekends.

10. I spend hundreds of dollars on supplies each year

There’s no two ways around it, many schools don’t provide teachers with an adequate supply budget, especially for the special projects we dream up. The paper mache dragons we make in my mythology classes? Fully funded by me, as are the pizza parties and my entire classroom library. Teachers do this because we know those special projects are what make school memorable for your children.

11. I don’t get paid for three months off

I sign a contract for 193 days of work. When I sign that contract, I have the option of receiving nine paychecks or twelve. Many teachers opt for twelve so that we receive a monthly paycheck during the summer. In spite of this, many teachers struggle to make ends meet and find themselves working a side hustle or second job.

12. 90% of my work day is spent actively teaching or supervising children

This means I cannot respond to your email right away – and if I respond in under 24 hours, there’s a really good chance I’m doing so on my own time. Nearly all paperwork duties I have happen either squeezed into the few moments when I’m not teaching, or they happen after my work day has ended.

13. Your negative comments hurt – a lot

Please remember I’m human, just like you or your child. Please remember that I approach this job with utmost love and respect. But because I’m human, I may make mistakes. Or it’s possible a miscommunication occurs. If you have a concern, please approach me directly and with kindness. I promise I will listen and we will work together to sort things out.

14. Your child has a cell phone or access to social media whether you allow it or not

Your family may have strict rules around cell phone or social media usage, but it’s a safe bet that other families have less stringent rules than you. And because of this, you should assume that your child is accessing technology including social media sites you may not allow.

15. We hate having to ask you for supplies (and if you can’t afford them, it’s okay)

Because schools are short on supplies, our hands are sort of forced on this one, but asking you to spend your hard-earned money on even more school supplies doesn’t sit well with us, either. Whatever you send is very appreciated, and if you just can’t afford to send them, that’s okay too.

16. If you don’t respect teachers, your child won’t either

Respect for adults, including teachers, coaches, scout leaders, and youth group leaders, comes directly from the home. If you respect us, your student will, too. If you don’t, they won’t.

17. Your child is more than a test score

We don’t like standardized tests, either. It’s lousy to have a single number define our students. That number isn’t representative of a student’s intelligence or ability. We know your students are so much more. We see them for who they are, just as you do.

18. Often, our hands are tied by bureaucracy 

The amount of red tape we encounter each day is truly mind-boggling. We are following both state and federal mandates (that are often unfunded) as well as policies and procedures mandated at the building level. Tasks that seem like they should be simple often are not because of the paperwork involved for us. Please be patient – we don’t like this any more than you do.

19. Please put more emphasis on learning than letter grades

I have many students who value an A so highly they’ll do almost anything to see that letter grade show up on their transcripts. Often, this translates to unbecoming behavior such as cheating, plagiarizing, or having a parent call the school to complain about a low grade. A hard-earned B is better than an easy A any day.

20. I have 100+ students a day

It’s not all about your child. That’s not unkindness, it’s simply the job I must do. For parents of middle and high school students, this move from elementary to upper grades can come as a shock. Every essay I assign I have to grade 100 times. Each time parent-teacher conferences roll around, I meet with dozens of families. It can be overwhelming.

21. We are rooting for your child

Once a child enters my classroom, they will forever be one of “my kids.” I am here for them even after they leave my classroom, whether you need a letter of recommendation or a reference for a job application. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my students succeed.

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t ever dream of a different job. There is so much joy to be found in working with children each day, and I look forward to many years of working in tandem with parents to help future generations of children succeed.

Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/21-things-teachers-want-to-say-to-parents-but-cant

What a coincidence! Professor Scanlon used the second picture to guide us to think about what can we do for students with disabilities as educators. I found these two pictures which explicitly expressed the definition of Equality, Equity, Liberation, & Inclusion. These four concepts are critical in the field of education.