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Tag Archives: challenges
Resiliency and Pandemic Fatigue
At the beginning of every school year, I survey my (11th & 12th grade) students for several things, including ACEs and resilience (using the ACE survey and the resilience survey from ACEs Too High), as well as things like time … Continue reading
Being Amazing On Demand
When teachers say that we’re struggling, our friends, students, former students and parents of our students rush to comfort us, saying things like “you’re doing an amazing job, especially given the circumstances,” or “we’re lucky to have such amazing teachers.” … Continue reading
Student Struggles & Anxiety
I have observed a couple of disconcerting trends in my teaching career. Since I started teaching in 2003, students are struggling more, particularly with math and critical thinking, and students’ anxiety levels are skyrocketing. +40
Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can Teach, Teach
Recently, a friend trotted out the old adage, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” This quote bothers me. I understand the frustration behind it, but my experience suggests otherwise. +1-1
Taking the Power Play Out of Self-Esteem
I’ve posted about student self-esteem several times. In two posts, Self Esteem from October 2011 and Self-Esteem Starts With Esteem from November 2013, I described students who continually put themselves down, and how I would insist that they say to me, “Mr. Bigler, I’m … Continue reading
Avoiding Failure by Never Trying
Each year, as students sink farther and farther into the abyss of test-driven curriculum and low-level thinking, I have to work harder and harder to teach them high-level thinking skills. This year, my students and I seem to be approaching … Continue reading
The Aftermath of Standardized Test Prep
When potential students ask whether (high school) physics is hard, I tell them, “Imagine a year of algebra word problems, in which you have to understand a situation in order to figure out which equation to apply and how to … Continue reading
The Ninety-Five Percent Solution
One of my father-in-law’s astute observations of human behavior is that most people do not correctly perceive ratios or probabilities less than 5% or greater than 95%. A greater-than-95% chance of something occurring becomes irrationally either “It definitely will happen,” … Continue reading
Poverty and Cognitive Ability
I just read an article with an interesting finding in Science News: “Poverty may tax thinking abilities.” The research, originally published in Science, claims that financial concerns that arise from living in poverty “damages reasoning abilities about as much as going … Continue reading
Four Fallacies of Educational Policy
One of the easiest ways to make a parent angry is for people who do not have children of their own to give parenting advice. Now suppose that those childless people were given the power to make rules that parents … Continue reading