Blog

This post was co-authored by Nora Moran, a student at Northern Highlands High School in New Jersey. April 14th is Leaders for Literacy day, a movement started by the International Literacy Association in 2015 to bring attention to the plight of almost 800 million...

As parents, teachers, students, companies, and society, we emphasize competition. We tell our athletes to “win at all costs.” In business, employees hear “there is no room for failure.” We evaluate our students, and their teachers, primarily on their ability to pass...

I’m honored, privileged and quite frankly, ecstatic(!) that Classroom Habitudes is now a manifesto on ChangeThis! ChangeThis is a site birthed from an idea by Seth Godin and operated by the folks at 1-800-CEO-READ ( click through to download the manfiesto) Among some...

Imaginative reading involves more than just getting lost in the text. As readers step into the roles of the characters and move around in their world, the text literally comes alive in their mind. Here is one of the 45 mini-lessons from Classroom Habitudes. Classroom...

Every week, I have the opportunity to engage in amazing conversations with students. Each time, I walk away thinking about how truly smart kids are. I am blown away by their thoughtfulness, insight, and potential. In this weeks lesson with first graders we talked...

This is an excerpt from my book, Classroom Habitudes. The following presentation and mini-lesson is one I share with students in teaching the Habitude of Courage. The italicized text in the mini-lesson (below presentation) is what I say to the class. “One courageous...

Photo by Kate Macate on Unsplash Just as I was getting ready to post a Classroom Habitudes conversation that I had the pleasure of having with students this past week, I received this e-mail from a teacher: Greetings Angela, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea...

Photo by Mona Eendra on Unsplash There are days we celebrate, that we remember to remember, to cherish and to be grateful for. Today, I will remember, cherish and be grateful, even though it’s for a remembrance I wish I never had. Today marks the fourth anniversary of...

As a teacher, I’ve seen extraordinary things happen in the sandbox. From friendships being formed to brilliant dreams explored, the sandbox was the place where we created, shared ideas, and learned to love, trust, and depend on one another. Somewhere between grade...

Words matter. I encourage people to choose their words wisely, because the words we choose have a powerful effect on other people. As this post showed, the words we choose matter not only for teachers, but for anyone else who plays an important role in someone’s life....