Limitations come in many forms for educators of color: access, opportunities, networks, but perhaps most crucially, through forms of invalidation. Toward healing, some educators of color have written about the isolation and trauma they have experienced on college campuses. Other have written in the spirit of resistance, boasting about the skills,…

Special education teachers have one of the most challenging and stressful jobs in public education, which often leads to increased burnout. High levels of burnout have, in turn, been related to lower levels of fidelity of implementation in delivery of evidence-based behavior interventions. The purpose of this position paper is to (a) propose…

No longer can teachers in the US simply close their classroom doors and isolate themselves, their classrooms, their students; that is, if they ever could. More than ever before, larger political, sociocultural and ideological forces find their way into the classroom on the backs of so-called educational reforms. But not every educational reform…

Henry Giroux begins this discussion by observing that he thinks there is a lot to be learned about what happens to higher education when authoritarians win elections and a liberal democracy morphs into something else. Giroux believes that under the regime of Donald Trump, higher education is under siege, and its stated purpose to produce the…

Two perspectives on teaching as a profession offer an interesting contrast. One side focuses on teachers from a political perspective, while the other envisions transforming teaching into a true profession.

Richard DuFour, a leading advocate for creating professional learning communities in schools, shares his insights on why teaching has become an "embattled profession" and the steps teachers and school leaders can take to enhance teachers' practice and their working lives. DuFour explains how recent reforms aimed at educators themselves…

Teachers are natural problem solvers, and they should be using this quality to their advantage when it comes to solving the systemic issues that plague Philadelphia's education system. Many of the articles in this issue have already gone into great detail about what is happening in Philadelphia. Torch Lytle has provided a summary of the recent…

Faculty members who led change initiatives often express frustration at the roadblocks created by other faculty members or groups. In 2009 George Kuh and Stanley Ikenberry undertook a survey of provosts for the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment to explore the state of student learning assessment. They found that "Gaining faculty…

In this article, Susan Moore Johnson calls for a balanced approach to improving teaching and learning, one that focuses on both teachers and the contexts in which they work. Drawing on over a decade of research on the experiences of new teachers, Johnson argues that focusing on the effectiveness of individuals while ignoring how their schools are…

The author works as a developmental writing instructor and tutor at a community college. She loves to write, to carve out some time to do what she spends her days teaching others to do. The author states that her becoming a teacher has made her life less her own. For her, teacher is all-absorbing. Yet, her life is not depleted by teaching; rather,…

The image of the schools and the teaching profession according to the media is usually negative. The negative picture is one reflecting the social problems of society and the failure of schools to educate, that is, drop-outs, teenage pregnancies, substance abuse, guns, knives, and attacks on students and teachers. Occasionally, the positive…

Surveys several philosophies and methods available to teachers for combating discipline problems. Summarizes types of disciplinary problems and explores reasons for teacher confusion and frustration when choosing a classroom management technique. (LFL)

Presents the history of the Newark Teachers Union, explaining how it reached out to teachers who had previously kept their distance by emphasizing professionalism and collective bargaining. However, 25 years later, teachers are disappointed because the Newark schools continued to decline despite the union victory, and the union itself became…

Argues that reform of teaching conditions will only come through teachers' initiatives and crusades. Offers ways English teachers can improve their working conditions, including (1) achieving consensus among their colleagues; (2) presenting a workload study to principals, personnel directors, and superintendents; (3) requesting additional…

This paper discusses competing norms for justifying teacher decisions, their effects on productivity and legitimacy in teaching, and the teaching profession as a moral and learning community. Drawing on philosophical analyses and studies of elementary and secondary schools, teacher preparation, staff development, and the adoption of innovations,…