Don't be stingy with knowledge

I provide online learning for homeschooling and supplementing in-school education to 9-13 year-olds. I have a BA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley, an MA in Regional Studies East Asia from Harvard, and an MA in Teaching from Trinity Washington University. I have taught every grade from third through 12th in private, public, and public charter schools. I've also homeschooled my own son during his middle school years and taught sailors how to write.

Education should be a feast of knowledge and all students should be invited to a banquet that includes literature, history, geography, art, music, science, and math. I believe that rich content knowledge and a wide vocabulary greatly enhance reading comprehension. I love teaching humanities units that integrate history, geography, literature, science, music, and art.

A lot of elementary school educators shy away from teaching content and spend a lot of effort teaching skills, especially reading comprehension skills. It turns out that, after students master decoding, the best way to improve reading comprehension is to build up their vocabulary and background knowledge. How do you do that? By teaching history, geography, literature, and science.

During my brief tenure teaching at a Washington DC charter school, teachers were asked to complete a very brief survey.  There were two items. The first was "Are you satisfied working at this school?  Yes or No?" The second was, "If no, explain" with virtually no space provided to explain.  So my answer was "no" and "it would take a book."  I missed the meeting where administrators shared the results of the survey, but my colleagues immediately identified me as "it would take a book". Now that I've retired from full-time teaching, I have the time to write that book, but a book seems rather ambitious, so I've decided to share my teacher stories and reflections in this blog.