Thank goodness I’m not alone trying to get teachers writing about their work for the larger community. Peter Smagorinsky, at the University of Georgia, provides another voice urging teachers to speak out. Visit the website “Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care” to read his suggestions on getting your words out there. Peter describes how he […]

Dear Friends and Followers– The TEDx event I organized, which took place Sept. 28, was so much work that I had to just let some things go for a couple of months until it was over. Then I skipped town for a few weeks to rest up. And now at last Teachers Speak Up is […]

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been writing fewer posts lately. The reason: I’ve been a little busy leading a team to organize a TEDx talks event. TEDxWellsStreetED on Teacher Voice is coming Sept 28 in Chicago. Our theme: “Exploring Teacher Voice Beyond the Classroom.” Our purpose: This event will feature a wide range of speakers […]

So the blogger Eduwonk has noticed that more teacher voices are making themselves heard — through advocacy groups like Educators 4 Excellence. You or I might not agree with all of the stands that they take, but these are teachers speaking up, 7500 in all, in Los Angeles, Minnesota, and New York. They form teams […]

I’m back after summer travel & work with our Illinois Writing Project Summer Leadership Institute — to find lots of news on the Teachers Speak Up front. Here’s just one item for people to keep on their radar: another educator who promotes teacher voice — teacher/blogger Lillie Marshall proposes to form a “teacher PR corps.” […]

On May 4, 2013, Barnard College hosted a conference titled, Reclaiming the Conversation on Education at which a series of outspoken educators (and one outspoken student!) addressed the concerns that policies, funding, and testing are undermining effective teaching and learning in schools. Groups and events like this are developing with greater and greater frequency, now. […]

It can be challenging to get teacher voices into the public eye and ear. So we were especially pleased to learn how NPR in Florida is highlighting teacher perspectives in a series of reports by Miami-Dade teacher and education analyst Jeremy Glazer. His latest piece describes how a fellow teacher, now retired, recalls discovering the […]

One of the challenges to getting teachers’ voices heard by the public is finding media outlets that will support this. But there are a number of solutions to this — and we hope that learning about some of them will help teachers to begin speaking up and telling the world about our important work. Teachers […]

Now that the long July 4th holiday is over, I’m back and up to no good. I just posted a writing prompt at National Writing Project iAnthology site, inviting teachers to write about a student who changed. I hope you’ll visit the site, but if you aren’t already a member you’ll need to sign up […]

Rachel Naomi Remen, is an outstanding doctor, medical reformer, and author. This doctor offers teachers a lesson about the importance of story. She gives us this lesson in a story in the DailyGood website. “In medicine,” she explains, “is often dismissed as ‘anecdotal evidence,’ a sort of second class data.” However, stories are the engines […]