Our latest podcast interviews are now available for your listening pleasure on the NCTE website. Harry Ross and I interviewed Kevin Hodgson, Massachusetts middle school teacher and member of the Western Mass. Writing Project. He explains the WMWP partnership with the local newspaper, the Hampshire Gazette, to feature teacher newspaper columns once a month. These […]

OK, let’s look at something new today: how workers in another field besides education communicate publicly about an issue. Let’s compare teachers vs female game designers. The issue is sexual harassment in the video game industry, and this story on NBCNews.com quotes a storm of Twitter feeds by women telling their harassment stories. And if […]

There are a great many ways to tell a teacher’s story so that the public can appreciate the value and the humanity in what we do. We just learned about a teacher, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, who web-published a tribute to his own 4th grade teacher — an autobiographical piece following the teacher’s career and his […]

Just heard from Steve Peterson, a new visitor to Teachers Speak Up, about his blog, where he lets us in on how he as a teacher gets kids thinking when they read. This is a great way to inform the wider public about how we educators think through and develop our craft, and how engaged […]

OK, since my son & his wife are delayed in arriving today because of fog at the airport, it looks like I have time for a post. I can’t believe I’ve missed this excellent website, Those Who Teach . It’s doing just what I’ve been proposing, asking, begging, pleading, cheering on, campaigning for. So go […]

I just received the following email from one of the table discussion leaders at our NCTE conference session on teacher voice. Let this inspire still more teachers tweeting the public about our work. Now let us all enjoy Thanksgiving! Hello Steve (and everyone), I wanted to pass along an anecdote from our table. My focus […]

Just back from Natl. Council of Teachers of English conference, where we heard teacher voice amplified as many of us shared and brainstormed strategies to better inform the wider public about our work and what we do for kids. Writing Project leaders from many states offered ideas. 75 teachers listened to Sonia Nieto’s stories of […]

Here’s a teacher, just into his second year, telling the Huffington Post how Memphis publicizes teachers and their achievements, involves them in decision-making, and is developing more meaningful career ladders for them. Not only a good list of strategies, but a teacher telling the world about them. Note: This writer is headed off to the […]

Writer-educator Michael Keathley joins us in promoting teacher voice, in his extensive blog post today. It’s great that he mentions Teachers Speak Up, but he also has plenty to say, himself, about us educators and our tendency to play the martyr role behind closed doors, rather than speaking out to the public about what we […]

If you’re following the posts on this site, you know we’re campaigning for a publicity blitz by teachers to promote public education. Here’s a letter to the Hechinger Report that no doubt wasn’t written in response to our urging, but argues very thoughtfully for finding common ground on education, as essential for improving our schools […]