Month: December 2022

Dear WeAreTeachers,
I teach 9th and 10th grade math in Dallas at a school where 90% of the students are Black and Hispanic. In one of my classes, I have two students who laugh very loudly together—so loud it’s a distraction. I’ve redirected them nearly every day since the beginning of the year, but it’s still a daily problem. Last week, I jokingly told them they needed to learn how to laugh quieter, and one of them said that was racist. I pointed out that if I were racist, why would I be teaching at their school? That landed me in hot water with my admin. I’m not racist—at all—and am offended that apparently everyone except me gets to decide what my motivations are. How do I come back from this? —Colorblind

Dear C.,

Early in my teaching, I had to record a video of myself teaching and send it

contributed by Dr. Allen Mendler

While stress caused by common core concerns has dominated the recent education landscape, dealing with ‘difficult’ students remains the number one source of constant tension for most teachers.

Continual exposure to students who won’t behave or produce can quickly erode both confidence and well-being.

As a new school year approaches, the guidance offered by six ‘pillars’ can help you stay at the top of your game by dramatically influencing even your most challenging students to want to behave and achieve. Each pillar is explained followed by a few hands-on suggestions. Add or substitute other methods within each pillar to reflect your style and preference.

6 Strategies For Growing Closer To Your Most Challenging Students

1. Establish Trust

‘Difficult’ students may have difficulty trusting adults and authority figures, perhaps because they have been jilted in the past. Build trust so that you can build a real,

Excerpted from “Teaching Math to English Learners” by Adrian Mendoza with Tina Beene. Published by Seidlitz Education, 2022.

Embracing academic conversations in the math classroom becomes routine when teachers intentionally prepare content-based linguistic supports to guide and scaffold language. These opportunities for language are important because verbalizing thinking helps students with sense- making, analysis, and reasoning. When students process and engage in sharing, they gain problem-solving perspectives and address misconceptions or incompleteness in their ideas more than if they worked independently (Webb et al., 2014).

Structured conversations in a math classroom are especially crucial when teaching English learners (ELs) or students who may feel frustrated or anxious when classmates’ responses to questions bypass the problem-solving process and skip to the solution. When the EL has a different, viable perspective, they might struggle to communicate. There is still a misconception that the first to respond is smarter than the

I grew up in a time when the stereotyped portrayal of Indigenous people was that seen in early western movies. For example, as a child I would see a Plains tribal member being played by a non-Indigenous person speaking my own Díne language, when clearly the character was not of my tribe. And I honestly cannot think of one book that represented me when I was in school. In fact, I didn’t see a reflection of myself on television, in books, in school, or in educational materials. 

Now as an educator, I am excited to see the change in educational materials that elevate the diversity of Native peoples, and to see them become more available. I am also excited to be filling my shelves with books that represent my students—I am leading with an equitable lens so that my classroom represents my students and honors their Indigenous identity.

The