Competency-based education involves academic knowledge, along with personal skills and dispositions for life success. Competency-based teachers meet students right where they are, personalize and differentiate as needed, support and guide them in designing pathways to meet goals.

Here is a summer challenge for you: What is your passion? With time to dedicate to it, what will you do? What unanswered question is out there for you to pursue?

We want to celebrate with you the joy of the many impactful contributions that women educators have made in the United States.

We nudge kids to “listen-up,“ but perhaps teacher listening is even equally important. What are our learners telling us about themselves: in class, after class, in their writing, journals, collaborations, in daily chatter?

Black History Month and Valentine’s Day: February is a perfect time to get students engaged by giving them the opportunity to do social justice and equality projects that a have an impact. These types of projects help our students deal critically and logically with complex and subjective information.

I grew up in northern New York, in a small city on Lake Ontario. We lived in a two-story older home that was painted a light sunny yellow. But what I remember most from our home were the two humungous century-old maple trees that grew in the front yard, whose leaves turned from green to fiery red every autumn. That sight alone would be enough to be memorable, but what they represented was much more. It was learning.

Barbara Hillary is a powerful example. Retiring after 55 years as a nurse, she set a goal to be the first Black woman to reach the North Pole, even though she had had breast cancer and lung cancer, losing 25% of her lung capacity. Barbara planned, raised money, trained … and succeeded at 75 years old and then conquered the South Pole at 79! What if our students could catch that magic?

I check in often with my 14 and 17-year-old grandsons, as they are in a distance learning program at a really great public charter school – in fact, it is the highest-ranked public high school in my state. But great schools don't necessarily transition well to a great distance learning program. "How is school going?" I gingerly asked Spencer, the 17-year-old, who was magna cum laude from grades 1-8. "Nana, I'm turning in assignments, but I'm not learning," he replied - an astute but heart-wrenching response.

In November, I began eyeing cupboards that have stuff I haven’t used for years and imagining new space and projects – a gift-wrapping and craft center just in time for the holidays! It’s sort of a “getting-back-to-basics” time, not only in our personal lives but also in school: What’s really working? How could it work better? What do we really care about…and are we pursuing it? Let’s reframe the notion that COVID is forcing us indoors and apart. How about a more powerful narrative of really choosing this time for reflection, to refine our practice, to reimagine our teaching and learning.