Blog
How to Keep Kids Off Their Phones While Homeschooling
By: Scott Wilson | Sep 2, 2026
The most reliable way to keep kids off their phones while homeschooling is to agree on a spot where the phone goes during schoolwork, out of reach and out of sight. Set a clear return point, keep the work surface phone-free, and switch off notifications before the session starts.
Teachers have been working on this problem for a long time. Now it's your kitchen table.
Eyes down ...
8 Ways Teachers Can Build a Positive School Culture
By: Jon Konen | Apr 17, 2018
Teacher leaders build a positive school culture by owning what they can control: consistent behavior systems such as PBIS, deliberate staff and student recognition, shared expectations, and cross-grade connections such as buddy classrooms. None of these actions require a principal's initiative. A teacher who starts small in their own classroom ...
When Special Education Teachers Get Married
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 27, 2018
Step parenting a child with special needs means joining a family mid-story, learning a diagnosis you didn't grow up with, and giving up the just-us time you expected. This is one special education teacher's honest account of marrying into it, including what helped and what nobody warned her about. Last Saturday ...
Freshening Up
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 27, 2018
During Christmas break, I spent far too much time in front of the television. I know this because there is a groove in the couch from where my happy hiney spent far too much time embracing the spirit of the word “break.”
I took a break from wearing make-up. I took ...
What Frustrates Teachers Most About the IEP Process
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 27, 2018
The most frustrating part of the IEP process, for the special education teachers I asked, isn't the paperwork itself. It's the breakdown between the people responsible for it: missing records from a previous district, parents who don't attend, goals nobody can measure, and team members who never show up to ...
Scarcity and Surplus
By: Tricia Koechig | Mar 27, 2018
Teachers are infamous for ALWAYS using up any and all resources. Teachers can NEVER have enough glue sticks. Teachers can NEVER have enough paper clips, file folders, paper, pencils, white-board markers, sticky tack, tape, and the list could go on and on. Teachers are experts at depleting materials, resources, time, ...
How to Talk to Your Kids About Snapchat: 7 Lessons in Responsible Use
By: Jon Konen | Mar 26, 2018
Start with Snapchat's own safety tools: its minimum age is generally 13, though it can be higher in some countries or regions, and its Family Center lets you see who your child talks to without reading the messages. From there, settle on a monitoring routine you can maintain consistently, teach ...
10 Reasons to Have a Teaching Collaboration Partner
By: Jon Konen | Mar 23, 2018
A teaching collaboration partner is a fellow educator you check in with regularly to trade ideas, troubleshoot problems, and push each other's practice forward. The relationship works because both people bring solutions, not just complaints. One Montana elementary principal built this kind of partnership with a colleague 200 miles away, ...
When Special Education Teachers Gets Sick
By: Mary McLaughlin | Mar 23, 2018
During the course of my career, I have been sneezed on, coughed on, vomited on, spit on, pulled on, tugged on, cried on, been in the presence of seizures, copious amounts of blood, and even a heart attack. Insulin pumps don’t scare me, neither do tracheotomies.
What really scares me the ...
Showing Professionalism as a Teacher: Danielson 4f Guide
By: Jon Konen | Feb 20, 2018
Showing professionalism as a teacher comes down to three things Charlotte Danielson's Domain 4f looks at: honesty in every interaction, decisions made on student needs rather than adult convenience, and leadership that reaches past your own classroom. In my experience, those habits count for more when colleagues can see them, ...
The Four Functions of Behavior, Explained for Teachers
By: Blain Hockridge | Feb 20, 2018
The four functions of behavior are attention, escape, access to tangibles, and automatic reinforcement, often remembered by the acronym SEAT. Many behaviors can be understood through these common functional categories. Once you have a sense of what's driving a behavior, you can stop guessing at consequences and start teaching a ...