Category: Stories from Teacherland
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A missions statement of sorts
Personal post to start the school year– Time for another year of figuring it all out as I go along. Quick catch up: I am a stay at home mom and former secondary teacher. My husband’s school has a play group that my baby girl can now attend and thrive in so I have a…
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End of term personal and professional check in–
It’s the end of the semester for my husband’s school and we will be traveling to America for the summer. As a stay-at-home-mom who likes to dabble in TPT but wants to be more consistent in her little TPT business one day, any sort of structure is self-imposed. Let’s do a bit of a check…
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Teaching the Skill of Note-Taking in a Social Studies Classroom
It’s the 21st century and note-taking has been called into question in the teaching-sphere. Do students still need to learn how to take notes on their own if the world has become increasingly digital? Can we kick the pen and paper to the curb? A quick Google search can find you endless articles that argue…
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Small Spider Webs All At Once! A Less-Than-Formal Approach to Classroom Discussions
I love having discussion in my classroom but I always struggle with forced and ingenuine classroom discussion. You know what I’m taking about if you have taught secondary school. Either students don’t want to talk or partake in anyway or they know they are being graded so they put on a show and are very…
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Teaching American History to Non-Americans (and my philosophy of education)
What’s your sales pitch on the first day of school? Do you try to package your course for your new students the year starts or do you let them figure it out as you go along? As a teacher in an American international school who is tasked with teaching American History to non-Americans, its almost…
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Welcome to Teacherland
Teacherland (n): my classroom, a sovereign state ruled by a benevolent dictator 😉 Hi, I’m Devin and I am a social studies teacher. Teaching my kids how a government works can be tricky but forming my own country has made the process a bit goofy but very memorable. I started my teaching career in middle…