Citizen Teacher

Reaching Out, Giving Hope: Mentoring Across the Generations

August 7, 2015

A few months ago, I started seeing teachers posting anecdotes online under the title, “Evaluate This!” in response to the current practice of evaluating teachers, even those who don’t teach in tested subjects, on the standardized (English and Math) test scores of students. Teachers and students are so much more than data points, and test […]

Posted in: Stories from The Archive

Back to the Roots: A Tribute to Cathy Fleischer, PhD.

July 19, 2015

There is one teacher in my life who has played a tremendous role in my education, for she has been my teacher for over 20 years. When I was an undergrad in English Education at Eastern Michigan University, I had the great good fortune to have been scheduled into an English Methods class taught by […]

Posted in: Stories from The Archive

This Is Our Story: The Maples of A125

July 19, 2015

June 2014 It’s 12:35 on my 3rd day of summer break. I’m at school. I’m interviewing students, listening, trying to find out what kind of experiences they’ve had in my classroom, looking back at twenty years of teaching Adrian Maples. I’ve decided to start writing about it–a memoir–in parts–on a blog. I am so happy […]

Posted in: Stories from The Present

Planting Peace Through Mindfulness Practices

July 12, 2018

Teacher Research: Mindfulness Artifact Survey July 2018 Today I’m going to take the first pass at artifact analysis. I’ll examine the collection of items before me, in physical form in a crate with hanging files, and in a number of open tabs in my web browser at the top of the screen, and I’ll think […]

Tagged: Community, Mindfulness, Peace

Posted in: Mindfulness, Teacher Research

Teacher Research 2018: Organizing Artifacts

July 9, 2018

5 July 2018 What happens when I sort and organize the documents from the past school year? What happens in my thinking? What emotional reactions do I have? When walked upstairs yesterday morning, I was determined to get the job done, once and for all. It was ten o’clock, and I had a jam […]

Tagged: Artifact Organization, Professional Development, Teacher Research

Posted in: Teacher Research

Self-Care & Self-Improvement

July 2, 2018

Thanks for reading. Thanks for subscribing. With Gratitude, ~ lisa

Tagged: Grief, Mindfulness, Personal Development, Reading, Reading Journal

Posted in: Books, Mindfulness, Reading, Stories from The Present

Responding To A Frequently-Asked Question About Teen Behavior

April 28, 2018

I address a negative stereotype about teen behavior in this blog. As a teacher at a public high school, I often get asked in casual conversation, “Are high school students really getting worse and worse as time goes by, like I hear in the media?” The people who ask use a certain tone in their […]

Tagged: Choice and Voice, Community, Discipline, Mindfulness, Reading

Posted in: Books, Mindfulness, Reading, Stories from The Present

Reader’s Workshop in Senior ELA : A Journey of Discovery

January 12, 2018

Part 1 of a Series on Independent Reading in Senior ELA Hooray! Unit 2 of Senior ELA is Reader’s Workshop. For me, this is exciting. For many of my students, this is unbelievable; this is unthinkable; this is outrageous. My seniors are not, for the most part, independent readers. I’m not exactly sure when they […]

Tagged: Community, Literacy, Reader's Workshop, Reading

Posted in: Books, Reading, Stories from The Present

Learning & Land Ethic: Leopold Education Project at U-M Dearborn

November 11, 2017

I met Dr. Gail Luera, Associate Professor of Science Education at UM-Dearborn, at the 2017 Building a Land Ethic Conference in Baraboo, WI, a bi-annual event hosted by the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Realizing we both lived in SE Michigan, we exchanged email addresses and resolved to stay in touch. After the conference I contacted Gail […]

Tagged: Climate Change, Land Ethic, Leopold Education Project

Posted in: Stories from The Present

Student Voices: Calm-Now Chloe

October 29, 2017

Now that I’ve been collecting data on mindfulness in the ELA classroom for a couple of years, I want to begin to bring in some of the voices of my students. (All students whose work appears on my blog have given me permission to share their work, as have their parents.) Today, I introduce you […]

Tagged: Mindfulness, Student Voices

Posted in: Mindfulness, Stories from The Present