Teachers Helping Teachers

am very proud of my online store where I sell helpful reading lessons and project-based learning slides to teachers who need a quick way to engage their students.

I have been a seller on TpT since 2007 and it has grown tremendously over the years. However, I am NOT just a seller I am also a buyer. I tutor part-time, so I always look for helpful assignments for my students who vary in grade level.

I know that many teachers are on a budget so I wanted to list a few sites I like to use and find lesson sources for free. After all, teachers are ALWAYS on a budget!

Great School Partnership - This site featured my lesson plan on Ukrania poetry and offered great classroom engagement tips and ideas.

Education World - Education World is a complete online resource that teachers, administrators and school staff can visit each day to find high-quality and in-depth original content. 

Education.com - This site provides content that will "Nurture each child’s passion, curiosity, optimism, and educational success."

EdHelper.com - I have always loved Edhelper. They have a tremendous variety of lessons covering tons of topics.

These are just a few of the available site to help you plan optimum lessons for your kiddos. Just Google "lesson plans".

19th Year and Counting

his will be my 19th year as an educator and as the new school year is about to begin I am excited, nervous, and a little sad about leaving summer vacation behind.

Since I began teaching in 2005, so much has changed in the classroom, the access to technology, learning management systems, online tutoring that occurs in class while the teacher is teaching, the massive exodus from the profession of teaching, unfounded claims that teachers are indoctrinating students...and I could go on.

"Why do you stay?" They ask. "I couldn't do it!" They exclaim.

I stay because I love teaching kids, I do it because I love teaching. It's quite simple for me. I have several former students who are now educators and even former educators. It's a tough road, I have encouraged them to persevere and most have; some have moved on to other professions and that is understandable.

 

I look forward to another exciting year of teacher and student triumphs. I am hopeful for support administration and staff to make sure that the school year is one of learning and a safe space to be creative and grow.

Burning On

by Paula J. Sanders-Nelson ~November 13, 2022

Everyone has heard of teacher burnout, right? More students, more paperwork, more discipline issues…daily. It’s enough to make many take off their teacher hats and hang it up.

“It's caused by chronic stress due to unrelenting workplace demands. The National Education Association defines teacher burnout as “a condition in which an educator has exhausted the personal and professional resources necessary to do the job.” It's not just about the ability to educate effectively, though.Sep 15, 2022 Teacher Burnout: A Growing Problem in Schools - Talkspace

 

My last year teaching high school was a bit much. There were some nights when I couldn't close my eyes without dreaming about the noise and violence. Yes, I said violence. 

My plate was already full with work, plus family health issues and now pile on the daily discipline issues, fights, lack of administrative support, apathetic students and the list goes on, I was teetering on the edge of good-bye teaching profession.

So many at this point ask, well, why didn’t you just quit?

Reasons, well there are many…not only was my family depending on me financially, but I had students who became like family depending on me for emotional support. How could I, in the midst of all of the chaos, simply walk out on them? If I was feeling anxious, nervous, stressed and borderline traumatized, how were they feeling?

 I looked out each day at a group of students who should have been elated to be back in school and moving into the normality of school days: homecoming, prom, field trips, athletics…instead, I saw a lot of blank faces. Many turning to artificial substances to escape the raucous. How could I just leave? I couldn't, I toughed it out. 

I am still toughing it out. It's a new year, new school, new kids, but I look out and see the similarities. They are keeping their heads above water, trying to be in the norm, but there is a lot going on inside of those young minds. So, my teacher hat is still on, I enter the classroom everyday, a little bit older but hopefully a little bit wiser. I’m burning on.

Teaching and Making Real World Connections

 July 2022

J. Sanders-Nelson
Dallas, Texas

In the spring of 2022, I was creating a poetry unit and I somehow wanted to make a connection between poetry and what was going on in the Ukraine which had dominated all news on all sources of media.

 

My students and I had brief conversations about it but never really delve deeper into it.

I decided to Google "Ukrainian poetry" and bingo, I found this article: “You’ve got to live somewhere you aren’t afraid to die.” Contemporary Ukrainian Poetry From Kharkiv

Here I discovered the most amazing and relevant poetry by Serhiy Zhadan, a punk lyricist and definitely poet. 

With this singular resource, I created an engaging lesson that many of my students could absolutely relate to. Many commented on the poems being relevant to the social justice protest right here in our country. 

If you would like to use this poetry lesson for your students, please click here from the Great Schools Partnership Blog by Kate Gardoqui .

Lesson Plan: The Poetry of Serhiy Zhadan

The Teaching Challenge

April-2022

by Paula J. Sanders-Nelson

This has been a challenging year. I truly want what is best for my students, but sometimes feel as if I am set adrift all alone. I do give a lot of challenging work. I am working with young people who will soon be off into the world. Mom or Dad cannot call the college professor and demand you have a second chance. Nor can students put off completing classwork until the end of the semester and try to play "catch up".

I want my students to feel confident walking into an arena-size English 1301 class and understand the reading and writing assignment; how to format an MLA-styled paper. I want them to KNOW what MLA is! I do not want them to feel lost, left out or worse, dumb, because they did not meet the demands my of senior-level class. I dread hearing "they didn't teach us that" on some social media confessional video. I tried. I stood up in front of many who ignored me to watch Tik Tok videos of dogs on skateboards or the latest dance challenge. Only to forcibly charge me with leaving them out of the loop when it's down to the wire and the assignment is due and they absolutely have no clue what they are supposed to do or where to find it.

This has truly been a challenging year, but out of the hardships, I have observed first and second-generation future college students rise to the challenge and sometimes going above and beyond with their assignments. They actually enjoyed the work, learned from the articles and the stories, and demonstrated this in their on-time submissions. They were not kissing up to me, they were simply following instructions and getting the job done. No, they were not all straight "A" students, but they are the ones who will excel post-secondary, whether it be academically or in the workplace. They have the work ethic, they are teachable and coachable, and sharp. And I am proud of them because had it not been for these hardworking, ambitious, and entrepreneurial students, I might have just walked away from the job I love the most.

Teaching💗

🎓Hat's off to the hardworking survivors of the class of 2022

Starting Safe: Back to School with Covid-19

 
Safety for schools is priority one. Students, especially the younger ones, should wear masks not just for their safety but also for their friends and family. 

According to the Texas Education Agency:

"Masks Please note, mask provisions of GA-38 are not being enforced as the result of ongoing litigation. Further guidance will be made available after the court issues are resolved. 

Students Who Have COVID-19 As provided in this Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Rule, school systems must exclude students from attending school in person who are actively sick with COVID-19, who are 2 suspected of being actively sick with COVID-19, or who have received a positive test result for COVID-19, and must immediately notify parents if this is determined while on campus. 

Parents must ensure they do not send a child to school on campus if the child has COVID-19 symptoms or is test-confirmed with COVID-19, until the conditions for re-entry are met. See the DSHS rule for more details, including the conditions for ending the exclusion period and returning to school.
 

During the exclusion period, the school system may deliver remote instruction consistent with the practice of remote conferencing outlined in the proposed Student Attendance Accounting Handbook (SAAH) rules, as described here. To help mitigate the risk of asymptomatic individuals being on campuses, school systems may provide and/or conduct recurring COVID-19 testing using rapid tests provided by the state or other sources. Testing can be conducted with staff. With prior written permission of parents, testing can be conducted with students."

School districts are deep cleaning and providing teachers with sanitizer for desks, masks, and gloves. Our goal as educators is to feed young minds fruitful knowledge and now our job is also to keep our young charges safe.

As parents, we can contribute by making sure our students are safe and healthy, wearing masks, being mindful of social distance, and using that "hanitizer" 😊 (hand sanitizer.

We are absolutely all in this together and if we want a brighter and safer tomorrow, we will all work together for the common good.

Take care of yourself and each other~~Lester

Gifted Leadership

 Paula J. Sanders

(opinion)

Some people are born leaders, someone once said, and I believe that to be true.

I am a reluctant leader, but I am a hard worker, team player/cheerleader but I feel my true place is in the classroom.

I have been a classroom teacher for 16 years and teaching is actually my 2nd career. After college, I went into corporate training and eventually event production and sales. In those capacities I had to lead, but I did so with patience and firmness but never was I harsh, hateful, or hurtful. “Good leaders exhibit courage, passion, confidence, commitment, and ambition. They nurture the strengths and talents of their people and build teams committed to achieving common goals. “ (1)

Looking back on those times led me to some very interesting observations about educational leadership; some people are just natural-born gifted leaders. I remember working with a very young teacher, however, he was an intelligent and active teacher with great methods and ideas. (I have never been one to be intimidated by the fiery new teachers entering education; instead, I look forward to the fresh ideas they bring to the classroom.) One morning as we worked together on a special event for the school, I watched him direct and inform the other teachers and  I just had to tell him that he had a higher calling in education. Of course in the middle of preparations, he brushed it off as if I were joking. But I could just tell that there was something “gifted” in the way he headed up the team of teachers and students preparing for the special event, that leadership was indeed his forte. After all, “Great administrators are those who excelled in the classroom, not the teachers who got into administration to get away from teaching.” (2) He is now an inspiring administrator and has changed the lives of many, many students, and is very well respected by his staff and peers alike.

“Ineffective leadership can be thought of as directly contrasting successful leadership; while the latter has a positive influence on workers to achieve common goals, ineffective leadership, on the other hand, has an adverse impact on workers’ motivations to attain common goals.” (3) Contrary to watching a teacher evolve into a strong leader, I worked with a teacher who was extremely ambitious and made great efforts to receive recognition for her hard work and ideas. She relished in the fact that she wore many hats episodes her regular instructional position. She definitely had drive and ambition, but, from my personal observation, needed to hone her leadership skills. Her concern for her position and personal accolades often left gaping holes in her leadership style. Thus her team was simply worker bees than a united team. The work they completed definitely elevated her status with the end product and she praised herself when her team accomplished the goal. It was only when a seasoned administrator acknowledged her team that she would also do so, briefly, and then turn the focus back to her success in the task. Her ambitious leadership would never equal that of a gifted leader who could acknowledge that without the team of hard-working people behind them, success would remain far out of reach. 

In the past, I have been fortunate to serve children with phenomenal administrators. One in particular instilled the concept of “whatever it takes” and she allowed teachers to use whatever methods they had to make sure that students were engaged and learned well. This included teaching students about recycling and repurposing everyday items to having an “underground railroad” day to engage students in history and the realities of pre-civil war slavery. She wanted to walk by or walk into a classroom and see students receiving engaging instruction, collaborating, or independently working and focused. Her ability to coach, lead and inspire teachers made for great morale and high retention. “One key factor that influences teachers to remain at schools is their relationship with the building principal. ... the most crucial variable in faculty productiveness and commitment is the quality of the relationship between [faculty] and their administrators.” (4)

“Administrators who don’t understand what it takes to be a great teacher cannot succeed as leaders of a school.” (5) There is truth in this statement because there are plenty of teachers who would make excellent leaders, but for the love of teaching remain in the classroom. An educator who I call a colleague and friend is one such teacher/leader. She goes above and beyond for her students and coworkers. She has elevated ideas from classroom instruction to school activities. She is encouraging, knowledgeable, and most of all humble. She is extremely likable and I have discovered that some may find her light and ability to make a friend anywhere intimidating. They are prone to the notion that she is trying to be better than they are or somehow intentionally outshine them but that is just not the case. Her only intent is to be a team player and uplift those around her even on some of her most personally challenging days. I have assumed several times that she would go for leadership positions but each time she waved them by basking in the joys of simple teacherhood, utilizing her “gifted leadership” to the fullest in her classroom. 

In the end, a gifted leader knows how to gather a team seemingly falling apart and bring them back together. Gifted leaders can harness potential without harmful worlds, inspire without insult and work selflessly to make sure that all teachers feel appreciated, even when things are tough and right now, things are tough all over.

To administrators, I must say that just because some are “gifted leaders” does not mean that you are NOT a true leader yourself. Some believe that, “Great leadership is not a natural occurrence. Though some people have innate leadership traits, the best heads of the pack get that way through ongoing mentoring, training and real-world experience.” So, take the time to improve your style and knowledge as a leader to increase or maintain the morale of your team. An effective and conscious leader will accept the need to learn more and develop those skills in order to become an even more competent leader. This effort is not just a personal goal but is also for the amazing teachers and students who stand with you. “Conscious leaders speak with integrity, lead with authenticity and hold themselves accountable. They listen with the intent to understand and not just to respond...” (6)

Sources

1. 8 Must-have Qualities of Effective Leaders 

2. Why Ineffective Teachers Shouldn't Be Hired as Administrators 

3. Competitiveness Review 

4. Teacher Retention 

5. Why Ineffective Teachers Shouldn't be Hired as Administrators 

6. 5 Ways to Be a Conscious Leader 

7. Natural Born Leaders