Learning to Teach

I don't even remember how it came up. It was a casual conversation during work time. I didn't expect it to be a big deal. I just remember saying something like "I mean, I'm not happy, and I'm doing okay." I'll never forget the look of shock on their faces. "Mr. Howard... you're not?!" The message was, again, supposed to be "I don't think I'm happy, but I'm doing just fine." What they heard was "I'm not happy." Mental health issues seem to be more prevalent than ever for teenagers. Maybe they look up to us thinking that those issues go away when you become an adult and feel like you have more control over your life. Maybe knowing that I was struggling despite having a job that I loved was too much for them. Or maybe they just felt bad for me. But it made me realize that I don't really know how to talk about mental health with students. When someone like Anthony Bourdain commits suicide, it's eart

The "Science of Happiness" podcast, which focuses on research from the Greater Good Science Center of UC Berkely, has a guinea pig complete a different research backed happiness exercise. The guinea pig then comes on the podcast to reflect on the progression of their thoughts and feelings as they completed the exercise. With the school year approaching, I find myself reflecting on how hard it can be to stay positive during the grind of the year. I decided to take some of the exercises highlighted in the podcast and adapt them for teachers. My question was: How can we build these exercises into our week so we can feel more positive feelings towards our job when the grind gets hard? Time is valuable during the school year. Consider this time as an investment towards your own well-being. Life, and teaching, are all about longevity. It's important to take time to intentionally work on your own happiness so you can be the best teacher you can be. Consider replacing one ep

There are a lot of ways to look at 24. In elementary school, students start to learn how to break down numbers in different ways. So then when they see 24, they may see 8*3 instead. Or maybe they see 12*2. Or maybe they see 6*4. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24, then, are called factors of the number 24. While directly teaching students about factors can be effective, sometimes it's nice to hide a concept within a certain problem. So, although I have given a big hint by rambling about factoring, you shouldn't give your students the same hint. I also won't give you anymore hints either. Here is the light bulb problem, a problem that I think is a great exercise for students who are learning about factors. It is also a great exercise for older students who also know about factors. It's also a great exercise for adults who may or may not be math teachers and who may or may not be a few drinks in. Do what you want with it! Problem: Solution:

If you have children who are currently in school, homework time can be difficult. You may have struggled with math during school or you may be unfamiliar with the methods being used today, which can cause frustration for both you and your student as you struggle through the assignment. One teacher made a video explaining how she teaches two digit multiplication using an area model , and a lot of parents flipped. A common response was that this is a ridiculous waste of time. They learned a much easier and faster way when they were in school. I made a response video, which you can watch below, that explains the benefit of an area model as well as the damage that can be caused by invalidating different methods for solving problems. If you don't want to watch the whole video, here are the 4 main points I make at the end: 1. Do not invalidate certain ways of solving a problem. Rather, it could be a fun exercise to let your child solve the problem, then compare their method to how

Teacher burn out is a real issue. Many teachers do not survive past their third year, and even less make it past their fifth year. The most common advice that veteran teachers give to new teachers is to not bring work home. Set boundaries. Work is work and home is home. I believe there is a lot of merit to that advice. However, if we are going to stick to that, HOW in the world are we still assigning homework to students? We cannot say home is my space and I will not work there if we are expecting students to take work home. You know what? Stop. I don't want to hear about how you are only assigning 20 minutes a night. If students have six classes and all their teachers do that, that is still 2 hours of work per night. Are you working two extra hours per night? Do you expect all of your colleagues to work two extra hours per night? If the answer is no, then you can't give kids your 20 minute assignment. If the answer is yes, then maybe we need to look at that. Examining Work-

I have been kind of against group quizzes in the past and they certainly aren't something that I would use frequently. However, the schedule was tight and we had a weird week last week. When the dust settled, I was trying to give a Monday quiz to some students who I hadn't seen since the previous Monday. I knew that wasn't fair, so to reduce their stress, I moved the quiz to Tuesday and made it a group quiz. Though I felt like this was a necessary adjustment to make, I ended up being really happy with how it ended up playing out. In my experience, students beg for group quizzes. I would think it is because they want to latch on to a "smart" kid and ride on their coat tails. Though maybe that is their intention, that is not what ended up happening. It required active monitoring, but I ended up seeing some of the best collaboration that has occurred in my classroom. They were catching each other's mistakes, giving each other ideas, and working through areas of