Over the years, Iserotope has covered a number of topics: teaching, reading, technology, and more. Last year, when I left the classroom to become an instructional coach, the blog shifted to focus on the Kindle Classroom Project.
I got very excited that so many people wanted to donate their Kindles that I made sure to keep everyone updated about the progress of the project, which has grown from 12 Kindles last November to 69 now.
This year, I will continue to build the Kindle Classroom Project — the goal is now 125 Kindles, enough for the entire ninth grade class at my new school. But I also hope to write more posts about teaching, this time from an observer’s point of view rather than from my own.
Being a coach is very different from being a teacher. You have a distance that makes you farther away, but because the minute-by-minute stress isn’t there, it’s also possible to see more clearly sometimes.
I feel like it’s important for me to tell more stories about what I’m seeing in the classroom. This is partly to counteract some of the prevailing narratives that we’re hearing on news shows or reading in newspapers.
Specifically, I want to focus on high school teachers who are trying to teach reading better. What do they try, and what’s working? Are there teachers who can communicate to students not only the importance of reading but also its complexity? Do students have a fixed mindset about reading, or are they open to improving?
Elementary and middle school teachers and instructional coaches are doing a good job, in my opinion, of keeping reading at the center of their practice. By high school, though, that emphasis goes away, and the unfortunate assumption is that students either know how to read by then or, well, too bad. That, of course, needs to change.
In addition to focusing on teaching and reading, I’d like to hear from you, Iserotope readers, about what you’d like to read about. So please let me know! It’s going to be a great year. Hope you join me in the journey!