College, Career, Or Whatever Readiness
In recent times, the term “college and career ready” has come back into trend. It’s a term that first saw a spotlight during the Obama administration, when then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and...
View ArticleGod Keeps Me and Us Around (2021 Year-In-Review)
Many of us end this year the same way we ended last year: by staring at screens, searching for answers to questions we don’t know how to ask. Screens of all sizes feed us information about the way...
View ArticleA Word About The Work We Must Do
About five years ago, the Teacher Activist Group in Boston, MA invited me to speak at their 7th annual Boston-Area Education for Social Justice Conference. I had already been there a few times for...
View ArticleIt’s OK To Not Have The Words
There was a moment, just as I was getting into the groove of my second class, where I thought I had it all together. And then, I didn’t. I’m teaching a class this summer on education and public policy...
View ArticleWhere Contrition and Closure Go Hand-In-Hand
“Vilson, you should read the names of the graduates. You know them anyways.” We’re at a retirement party that my wife and I organized for Ms. Nuevo (now that she’s retired, I can name her) when...
View ArticleWe Put The Public in Public Schools (A Reprise)
Last Monday, a coalition of parents, educators, students, and New York City Councilmembers came together to rebuke school budget cuts to New York City schools. For their part, the present City...
View ArticleCry On The Last Day of School, Too (on Abbott Elementary)
When was the last time you cried at the end of a school year? I’ve done it about five times as a teacher, each moment with its own context. The first time was because I finished my first school year....
View ArticleWhat The American Teacher Act Shows Us About Education Now
In the last year, I’ve visited four different classrooms, three of them within New York City. During my visits, I noticed similar trends: well-organized classrooms, bell schedules, students of varying...
View ArticleWhat Spongebob Taught Me About Optimism In The Now
“Just six more minutes left / We’ve done all we could do / And whatever happens next / I’m glad I’m here with you …” Being a dad is wild. As a youth, I recall weekend mornings chewing down giant bowls...
View ArticleAbolish School Supply Lists, Too
My son and I ran over to a super convenience store (you’ll know which one) to do some last-minute grocery shopping when we happened upon some notebooks in multiple colors, each of them college-ruled,...
View ArticleThe Problem With How You Discuss Reading
Kids can’t read. At least that’s what we’ve been told to believe by folks trying to dismantle public education. Proponents of this refrain use frivolous things like standardized test scores with no...
View ArticleDifficult For Whom: A Conversation about Conversations and Systems
Recently, my son did an active-shooter drill at his school. I asked him how it went. He mentioned how it was fine, but a few students couldn’t be quiet. I nodded, remembering my days as a middle...
View ArticleDeath By Millions of Cuts (In Defense of NYC Public Schools and Beyond)
Last year, when I dropped my son off at school, my first question to the staff was “What’s changed?” After the cuts came down, students felt a palpable loss across the board. We can enumerate the...
View ArticleFor Educators Who Get In Trouble But Want To Stay In Their Professions
Last night, I was asked to speak virtually to a group of student teachers who read my book This Is Not A Test for class (on sale at Haymarket Books, by the way). It was great speaking to this group of...
View ArticleLearning Loss and the Lessons Americans Refuse To Learn
The United States of America has spent the last three years arguing about the pandemic’s effects on students’ academic and socioemotional well-being. Of course, this gave rise to the hodgepodge of...
View ArticleWhat Does A Good School Even Mean?
Recently, I saw a meme suggesting what school should have taught us as opposed to what it teaches us. The setup usually lists a set of skills that seem like common sense: how to do your taxes, how to...
View Article‘Origin’ and Teaching Our Son Before The World Does
A few weekends ago, ARRAY Inc. invited EduColor to a screening of Origin, a movie based on the events surrounding and within Isabel Wilkerson’s best-selling Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents....
View ArticleTired of Being Tired (Towards A Better 2024)
Have you ever taken a ride on Kingda Ka roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure? You get in a seat with the high-velocity harness, waiting for the click to secure you. Unlike other coasters where...
View ArticleA Note on Nikki Haley, Slavery, and Teacher Professionalism
There are complex answers that deserve interrogation through all their interwoven facets and there are complex answers that converge toward a simple response. The cause of the American Civil War is...
View ArticleWhat I Get To See In Us [2023 Year-In-Review]
There were about six minutes of silence in my house while I stared at my computer screen. This time, my advisors were on the other side of the Zoom call, discussing whether my presentation was...
View Article
