Starr Sackstein, MJE, NBCT

Logan and I often make funny pictures emoting different things. These faces clearly communicate sadness which is what confrontations can often lead to.

Admittedly, I don’t enjoy confrontational situations at all. I find myself overly emotional, passionately so, with the kind of anger that could bring me into a friend’s classroom to let loose a venting session that could make Nurse Ratched look tame or unleash the flood gates as my anger pours into sadness and disappointment. But the honest truth is that confrontation and conflict resolution are a necessary part of life.

Conflicts happen: Disagreements. Misunderstandings. Bad days. Redirected or misguided attitudes. Ignoring our emotions when these kinds of things happen is pointless and potentially harmful. So it is both important and necessary to do more than just cope with these situations, but rather learn to defuse them and turn them into positives. Read more »

Students in newspaper class, engage in peer review and conferencing to produce a completely student run publication

Befuddled by an article run by the New York Times on May 27th entitled “At School Papers, Ink is Drying up” by reporter Winnie Hu, my students and I eagerly began an email campaign to tell our side of the story and express our malcontent with the portrayal of our paper.

It is true that the budget was cut from our program this year, which we were informed about in September with no real warning or fanfare. As a staff already down from this hit, we brainstormed ways to meet the challenge head on.

It has always been our contention that the newspaper is at the heart of our journalism school; there is great pride in what we do and how well we do it, which is why the article really struck a chord with the students. Read more »

Students present at QC library preparing to do academic research

Several weeks have expired and students have developed impressive second drafts with the help of the librarians, peers and me. They have taken their ideas and developed them into arguments with textual support and evidence from a variety of academic places…but they aren’t done yet.

As teachers, we need to support and encourage students to cross the finish line on the due date at a run and not a crawl; it’s time to teach them to proofread and polish the finer stylistic pieces of their papers.

At the heart of it, a research paper still has an audience to engage. It’s not enough to have the research and ideas, it must be conveyed in a meaningful and exciting way. Read more »

Students squirm when they see a rubric that addresses 5-10 standards, imagine an 81 page book of standards and see how you measure up

So I was in a slump. After teaching for 10 years, I was starting to feel like I wasn’t growing anymore (and much like my higher functioning students, boredom is the kiss of death). So it was time…

For a change.

I heard about National Board Certification being the most rigorous test of teacher effectiveness and that sounded like the mountain I wanted to climb.  So I eagerly searched their website and without too much thought of how, I took out my credit card and signed up. (Later I was able to get a state grant to pay for most of the cost)

Then I didn’t think much about it, until… Read more »