Miles O'Shea Archives
What If?
Posted on March 31, 2023
What if there was nothing called school until today? What if the concept of formal education never existed until right now? Would we create a system that has evolved to its current state in the year 2023? I think it’s easy to answer the last question and more difficult to answer the first two. But […]
Maverick Teaching – Close Your Door and Teach
Posted on March 31, 2023 Leave a Comment
A few years into my teaching career I met up with a former professor of mine. She was largely responsible for inspiring me to continue on the path to becoming a teacher. However, over the first few years in the classroom, the subtle comments from colleagues and administrators managed to push aside the inspirational messages […]
School and Running
Posted on May 6, 2021
School always seems like it misses the mark to me. We’ve built a huge infrastructure to educate children and it doesn’t do what we need it to do. But, this system does do what it’s designed to do. The problem is simply that the design and the structure have chosen the wrong target and severely […]
The First Day of School (and every day after)
Posted on April 22, 2021
The goal of working with students is to build positive relationships with students so that the they know that you care about them and that you are trustworthy. And, after this positive relationship has been established students will behave better and ultimately perform better academically. The first thing people usually say when they hear about […]
Teaching the Most Difficult Students
Posted on April 21, 2021
In a previous post, I Don’t Want to Be Taught, I wrote about reaching students who don’t seem to want to comply and learn. Well that was just on the surface and there’s so much more to the process than just a few simple steps. So if you’re on board with wanting to try and […]
Learner Centered
Posted on May 9, 2019
Student-centered learning is a common buzz term in education. Basically, researchers and like-minded educators are attempting to impart to teachers that students must be at the center of what is being taught. This process is described as breaking the traditional stand and deliver model that has been occuring in classrooms since the dawn of time. […]
By Any Other Name
Posted on May 9, 2019
Today I was struck by just how entrenched people are in their own ideas and beliefs. I supposed this entrenchment exists in all areas of ones life, but I think it often becomes very apparent in education and among educators. I mentioned today to a few of my teaching colleagues that I thought the school […]
The Emotionally Intelligent Teacher
Posted on April 28, 2019
Formal education is most certainly an interpersonal experience. Much of taken place to reform education over past 30 years has served to diminish the importance of the emotional, interpersonal experiences between teachers and students. However, perhaps it is time to once again acknowledge the importance of the human side of learning. Students learn best from […]
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