The Washington Post – Valerie Strauss
“I work in public schools and can be found navigating their halls on a regular basis. I wish I could say the conversation above was an isolated incident, not representative of other schools I have been in, but that is just not the case. I’ve seen and heard exchanges like this hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, in all sorts of schools — even the “good” ones. As a teacher, I myself participated in these types of interactions daily, but it wasn’t until recently that I began seeing them in a whole new light. A bit of history: I was a classroom teacher for eight years before taking a break to stay home with my children. When I returned to the education field a couple of years later, it was in a different capacity than before. I began training and coaching teachers, as well as working with administrators to promote best practices on their campuses. This role shift has given me a different perspective on an environment which was as familiar to me as my own skin, and it continues to be eye-opening in a number of ways.”(more)