During my first two years of teaching, I dealt with many situations that left me feeling downtrodden, broken and totally drained. For example, one day, I was sitting in my classroom in full panic mode as I tried to figure out how to create a graphic organizer for my students’ first essay. When an idea finally crossed my mind, and as I was about to write down my thoughts, a student stormed in and refused to leave. The more I told them they had to leave and head back to their class, the more their voice rose as they declared they, “hate their teacher.” Another incident that I remember was when s ..read more

There are plenty of changes teachers say could help them do their jobs better, such as adequate planning time and support for their well-being. Louisiana’s Department of Education decided to tackle some of these challenges by bringing together a group of teachers to recommend solutions — and they’re seeing change take shape. The Let Teachers Teach workgroup released its list of recommendations in May, and their ideas span improvements for dealing with issues including professional development, student discipline and what one of the state’s top education leaders calls “the art of teaching.” “To ..read more

When Jacob, a 10th grader with vision impairment, signed up for an AP class, it made him feel like a castaway. His ambitions to learn were thwarted because his teacher had assigned handouts and a three-week-long lesson plan that relied on a website that wasn’t easy for him to navigate. So he felt frustrated, isolated: “I am stranded on this desert island because that site doesn't work [with my screen reader],” Jacob later told a researcher, also adding, “You can't just re-change your whole teaching plan, especially when you've distributed it.” Like Jacob, many students with disabilities are fo ..read more

Colleges are adjusting to a lingering impact of COVID-19 shutdowns that kept kids out of physical schools at key points in their social development: It’s harder than it used to be to teach students to adjust to college life when so many are coming to campuses nervous about making social connections. As a result, many colleges and universities are rethinking their freshman orientation programs, adding new options and doing more to help students forge relationships. At the University of Colorado at Boulder this summer, for instance, administrators are offering incoming students three orientation ..read more

“Are you a boy or a girl?” the 5-year-old asked, staring at me as she waited for my response. I froze. Having worked primarily with middle and high schoolers, I wasn’t yet used to the blunt inquisitiveness of our younger students. I was caught off guard. It was 2022 and I had recently been hired as the principal of an all-girls elementary school in New York, and it was my first visit to the school to meet students, staff and families. “I’m a girl,” I said, smiling through my discomfort, before slinking away to chat with another student. The moment was brief, but it stuck in the pit of my belly ..read more

My colleagues feverishly jotted down notes as one of my students, Ethan, moved through his presentation on how educators can more intentionally use AI in their classes. Ethan, a high school junior studying to become a secondary history teacher in our Academy for Teaching and Learning, was presenting findings from his extensive research to the staff at our school. As part of this program at Morris County Vocational School, in New Jersey, where I teach, students engage in research about key issues at our school and learn how to plan effective professional development to support the staff. Ethan ..read more

For the last year, EdSurge has been showcasing students enrolled in teacher preparation programs to understand who is going into teaching today — and why. In each profile, we hand the mic over to an aspiring educator, letting them explain, in their own words, what drew them into this career path and why they’ve stuck with it. The series, called “America’s Future Teachers,” comes at a time when the teaching profession is in turmoil. Many current teachers report high levels of stress and dissatisfaction in their roles. Some have left the field. School districts are often not able to fill every o ..read more

Students are missing a lot of classes. Chronic absenteeism, when a student misses at least 10 percent of the school year — which includes missing school for any reason, and not just unexcused absences — nearly doubled from 2019 to 2022. In May, the White House flagged chronic absenteeism as a national “challenge,” pointing toward its connection to lower reading and graduation levels. Some state-level data has noted that young students, in kindergarten and preschool, are chronically absent at high rates. Experts argue that relationships are the key to pulling students back into the classroom, a ..read more

When ChatGPT and other new generative AI tools emerged in late 2022, the major concern for educators was cheating. After all, students quickly spread the word on TikTok and other social media platforms that with a few simple prompts, a chatbot could write an essay or answer a homework assignment in ways that would be hard for teachers to detect. But these days, when it comes to AI, another concern has come into the spotlight: That the technology could lead to less human interaction in schools and colleges — and that school administrators could one day try to use it to replace teachers. And it ..read more

When Sheresa Boone Blanchard, a mother of three in North Carolina, started homeschooling her son during the pandemic, it might actually have saved her time. Isaiah, her middle child, had finished fifth grade in June 2020. With the health crisis going on, Blanchard switched him to virtual lessons when he started sixth grade. But he has ADHD and just couldn't focus without someone with him, she says. So Blanchard, who was working remotely as a college professor, and her mother, Loretta Boone, who was retired, were spending a lot of time every day trying to help Isaiah with his virtual school ass ..read more