The Light Bulb

I have not created a blog post since our daughter was born, and I took on a new job as a parent. I wrote this piece about five years ago for publication in the Detroit News. Our students have spent up to 12 hours this school year standardized testing in ELA.  This has created additional stress amidst already stressful times. These tests should have been ditched. Does the data obtained from standardized testing tell our community how hard our students work and how dedicated they are to learning?  Detroit News - The Toxic Environment of Standardized Testing High-quality tests that accurately assess student learning and help teachers understand how to improve instruction are an essential part of an excellent education. But in some states and districts today, large-scale standardized testing has gotten out of hand, with students taking as many as 20 standardized tests per year. This was the situation in Michigan not too long ago. Teachers, parents, and students felt powerless w...

Why do I teach, you ask?  I teach, because it is a highly rewarding and fulfilling profession. Teachers have one of the most important, meaningful, and purpose-driven jobs of anyone today. We share valuable information and important skills to encourage a love of learning that will serve students the rest of their lives. I do this work because I am committed to having a positive impact on the future of each student that I serve. I wake up each morning and serve students at Iroquois Middle School. Being a role model and teaching students the skills and knowledge they need beyond the classroom is extremely inspiring and rewarding. No two days in teaching are ever the same.  For me, now a teacher myself, my motivation has always come from students in my classroom. I know that it is essential to make lesson plans interesting in order to get all students motivated about learning. I emphasize the collaborative and cooperative nature of scienti...

Through an Oaklan d University study abroad program, I tau ght 4th and 5th grade at Sunnyvale Primary School in New Zealand. The se are reflections and memories from my experiences. My experience was professionally and personally rewarding: I learned new teaching strategies, developed my listening skills and adapted my lifestyle to live and work in a new environment. As a result, I have become a more confident, well-rounded and self-reflective educator.  I was challenged to teach all subjects, including swimming, fitness, art, sport and music. I had to listen carefully to different accents. Many words we use in the United States have different meanings or do not exist in New Zealand’s vocabulary. For example, if I asked a student to place a “period” at the end of a sentence, they had no idea what I was talking about. In New Zealand, a period is called a “full stop.” If I asked a student to pull out an eraser, they would call it a “rubber.” Soccer is a word unique t...

Technology can help teachers “Ignite Learning” in the classroom by promoting literacy development and critical thinking. The ability to communicate and create is what sparks learning. “Kids these days” are just wired to operate in a digital environment, which enables them to take control of their education. This technology captivates students and makes them desire to learn more about the content.  Elite and innovative educators are “Blending and Flipping the Classroom” in order to meet the diverse needs of students. The numerous FREE online resources available can create a classroom that extends beyond normal school hours and walls.   This provides students with more flexible opportunities for peer interaction, learning the content, and developing technology skills. “Blending and Flipping the Classroom” and in-person environments are really the best of both worlds because students receive the benefit of face-to-face interaction with more opportunities to learn outsi...

I stand with Detroit teachers, students, and parents because they want their voices heard! They are demanding solutions and reform to plaguing issues that attack the human and civil rights to a public education. They are protesting by staging citywide “sickouts” for safe working and learning environments because the policy makers in Lansing were not listening, taking action, or giving them the attention they deserve.    Mushrooms growing out of walls, leaky roofs, rat feces, standing water, crumbling stairwells, black mold, three-inch-long cockroaches, and kids have to wear coats just to stay warm in overcrowded classrooms with little or no heat. According to Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan, these schools are literally falling apart. We may find better facilities and learning environments in third world countries. These miserable conditions are unacceptable and disgusting. Who should be held accountable for these issues, which are the cause for these “sickouts”? Fina...

Somewhere in the U.S., standing at the door of a classroom, a new lead teacher greets her students on the first day of school. She smiles as she shakes each student’s hand, and guides them to their organized, pre-arranged seats. When the class begins, she introduces herself and explains the classroom goals and the culture, which she hopes they’ll work together to create. After all,  she’s done it before . Unfortunately, this teacher’s experience is not the norm. Most teachers will share how unprepared they felt in the classroom on their first day. Nightmare stories about classroom behavior and exhaustion abound, while most new teachers continue to brave their first year without the support and preparation that they need to thrive. We need our higher education institutions and school districts to collaborate to improve teacher preparation and provide teachers with rigorous, classroom-based preparation. It is essential that states and teacher preparation programs have universal ...

In our seventh-grade science class, we recently learned about energy waves. Students were asked the questions: Is there a relationship between frequency, wavelength, and speed? If so, what is it? If not, why? I could teach about frequency, wavelength, and speed by having students memorize definitions, teaching them the math formulas, and having them do practice problems—then testing them on it. Instead, I had students use the vocabulary, design a model, and plan an investigation in order to discover the math formulas. Seventh graders in Lerchenfeldt’s class used a slinky, meter stick, and stopwatch to design an energy wave experiment. As a society and as science educators, we are in a transition from a focus on knowledge itself to a focus on putting that knowledge to use. That shift is behind Michigan’s move to a new paradigm for science teaching, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), adopted last year. The United States’ ability to innovate depends on science e...