You’ve had time away from teacher’s voices, we wanted to empower them to welcome our students and families back to school.
It’s been a few months since most people’s focus has been on traditional classroom subjects, but they’re never out-of-mind for the professionals charged with teaching our students.
Ever wondered how they see it? Have a listen.
Science is one of the core curricula. Personally, I think science is everywhere and in everything that we do throughout our entire lives. And it’s an important part, kids don’t always agree, but I think it’s an important part of their whole learning… I have a curriculum that we follow. But it’s very much investigation based. So we start out, here’s our question. And I try to get them to figure out okay, how can we answer that question, you know, and then we do the investigation, we do a lab, and then we analyze it and figure out what it means. We’ll do several of those. Then we kind of pull it all together…I mean, I am a total science geek, science nerd. The kids know that because I get totally geeked out and totally excited about. So cool. You know, we did dialysis tubing where, you know, some molecules pass through this membrane, and some don’t…I find it fascinating.
Lara Hays | Pinnacles Prep (Wenatchee, WA)
I like figuring out how students think. So that’s it. I’m a puzzle problem solver. I’ve always liked like physical puzzles and jigsaws. And even things that you have to manipulate, like escape rooms. So to me, everything is a problem that you’re trying to solve. When I meet a student, I’m trying to figure out the way that they think…Because it’s really difficult for a lot of people – “I don’t know what this means. I don’t know how to do that.” But then, that’s okay. “What do you need to then be able to do that? Okay, let’s build that skill, right?” So we’ll get there eventually. That’s what I aim for at the end of every day. Does happen all the time? Are they faced with adversity to have to pick themselves back up? Yeah, it happens. But it’s just so much fun. I really enjoy the process of learning and helping others learn, because I find learning fun.
Jackie Wardrip Smith | Why Not You Academy (Des Moines, WA)
Humanities is… some people don’t know… a mélange, if you will, of ELA [English Language Arts], Social Studies, and a little History. This quarter, it also includes some ecology. So, it’s very real life work, while learning to do the work of writing papers… For instance, we’re studying the trash vortex and the plastic problem in our oceans, through the lens of analyzing the literature about it and writing papers. I actually am very upfront with my students – I am not a scientist, I’m not an expert in the subject matter that we’re studying, I can just help them think critically and write papers about it.
Anni Evans | Pinnacles Prep (Wenatchee, WA)
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