Tom Rademacher
@MrTomRad
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Acquisitions Editor. Writer: It Won’t Be Easy & Raising Ollie () 2014 MN Teacher of the Year. He/His. Essays:
Minneapolis, MN
Joined February 2014
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Pinned Tweet
There are many things wrong with schools, and none of them, not one of them, can be blamed on kids. They. Are. Kids.
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I don’t know a single person working in schools who isn’t seeing abnormally negative student behavior. It’s a national issue, which means it’s not the kids’ fault or the parents’ or the teachers’, and it won’t get better acting like everything’s normal.
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I was talking with my kid (who is non-binary) about a friend whose child just also started using they/them pronouns. The parents were struggling to get the switch right, so my kiddo said, "tell them to imagine that, instead of a person, their kid is a swarm of bees."
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I don't believe that, on the whole, teachers are less racist than cops. I think we don't carry guns and that our damage is done quieter and over the space of years.
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A Madison owner is shutting down his restaurant (named for his child pre-transition), re-opening with a new name.
“My shirt has their dead name on it. My restaurant has their dead name on it. I care much more about them than I give a crap about a brand,”
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Yesterday I saw four adults passing AND SHARING a single mask over a restaurant patio fence to each other so they could each get in (masks were required to enter, but not once at a table).
So, maybe start shopping now for stuff you'll want to do in your house all winter?
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I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you know that fun Christmas activity you’re planning for your classroom? Stop. Unless you work at a Christian school, your room doesn’t need any stockings or Santas or reindeer.
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The first question asked by a student today knocked me back: "Is this the beginning of something or the end of something?"
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I want you to know that I'm a state Teacher of the Year and published author of a book on teaching and a fifteen year veteran and that I just found myself BEGGING a class to please, please engage in even the most minimal way online.
The begging didn't work. Today is going great.
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Going back to school buildings in fall is a bad idea.
Doing distance learning in fall is a bad idea.
Some combination of the two is a bad idea.
I do not have any better ideas.
I hate global pandemics.
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Lately, I can’t shake this idea that I’m not good enough at teaching to keep doing it.
It’s likely a mix of lack of motivation and depression and pandemic and successes being a little less loud and less likely.
Anyway, I’m feeling it, and if you are too, you aren’t alone.
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The idea that COVID isn't spreading at schools feels like a combination of under-testing, shady practices, and magical thinking.
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Teachers: It's ok to not make a video of you rapping to welcome your students this year.
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My advice to teachers: If you're in a conversation with another teacher who starts a sentence with the words "these kids can't..." get out of there. Run. Use smoke bombs if you have to. Do not let those words live in your head.
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Most Minnesota thing ever? Friend biked to meet me on a snowy night, left her mittens on the back of her bike. Someone walked by and put them into a plastic bag for her.
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I just got told to “stay in my lane” as an Edu-celeb because I suggested someone not post pictures and videos of his students (which also had their full names).
1) I don’t know what lane that would be.
2) Not an EduCeleb. I’m a teacher.
3) DON’T POST PICTURES OF YOUR STUDENTS.
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There's a student just straight up making banana cream pudding during class right now. Whisking and everything, just living his best life while we discuss the horseshoe theory of political ideology.
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It's ok for teachers to have political opinions. It's ok for teachers to share those opinions online. We can have real, full lives and engage with the world and also be effective professionals while we teach.
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I don’t understand how the move right now isn’t to remove anything from teachers’ plates that isn’t directly related to student impact and everything from students’ plates that isn’t essential.
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Teachers are tired, kids are tired, families are tired, Admin and support staff are tired. Be good to each other.
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Schools better be working hard to keep their teachers, or they'll have to work harder to attract new ones.
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My kiddo’s school is closing two hours early so teachers can “prepare for distance learning” in the event of a closure. Which is cool. I imagine preparing distance learning for an extended closure like that should take, oh, about exactly two hours, right?
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I’m seeing “Christmas is secular” but what I’m hearing is “I really really like Christmas and the fun things we do in class around it and i don’t want to have to stop” ... but that’s me.
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I really miss that 10 minutes after you launch something and the students start working on it that you can walk around and make sure everyone got it and answer questions and get them moving in the right direction.
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@MaryNellAnthony
Reframe: if it’s already everywhere, why does it need to be in your classroom? For kids who don’t celebrate, why not give them one safe space?
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I just really really want to be a good teacher this year, and want to feel like a good teacher. I want to reclaim what made teaching feel important, impactful, and joyful.
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There may be more books about transforming schools than there are schools that have been transformed.
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This distance teaching thing is hard and frustrating and time consuming. But to be in this time and have job security, structure, and meaningful work we can do from home means we are among the luckiest professions.
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My school doesn't start till September. Plus, I have a Governor, a Commissioner of Ed, a Superintendent, and a Principal who I trust to make the right calls to protect kids, and I'm STILL super stressed right now. I don't know how a lot of you are handling it.
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We have, all of us, been through an incredible traumatic few years. We can’t just declare that it’s over now and so we are ok.
@AlexSVenet
’s great book should be our framework.
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I will never ever understand why we don’t do everything in our power to keep this from happening. I will never understand how we don’t meet this with all our strength and resources, never understand why this isn’t bigger than any of our politics.
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Man... the leadership in my district is really leaning into this as a time to build in more autonomy for teachers, more choice for students, deeper and more creative thinking, and new structures for grading and measuring learning. I'm really really impressed.
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I took the day off of work today. Over the last week or so, my anxiety has been elevated and constant, and though it's not an emergency and not debilitating, I am exhausted on a number of levels. I needed a day and I'm taking it. This is an ok thing for teachers to do.
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I have a teacher friend who sent out five applications last week. Three of those places called within 30 minutes to offer interviews.
When the teacher friend called one to let them know they had an offer, that school offered a job on the spot. No interview.
Wild out there.
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I'm subbing in a 7th grade room where students have picked their own research topics for a final essay. One group of girls is researching the taboos around menstruation and recorded a bunch of their male classmates explaining how periods work. It is golden.
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Today was one of those days... I could write an entire book based only on stories from today, and only other people who have worked in schools would believe it.
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Apparently this article in Reductress from a few years ago really stuck with my kid.
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I don't think we've said nearly enough this year about the unbelievably good work that school nurses are doing.
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Deep breaths and remembering that one student who doesn't care about my class doesn't mean I'm a failure of a teacher, and that I have all year to reach the students who are struggling.
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If a lot of us end up with shut down schools for a few weeks, we’re really going to struggle to make that instructional time up. I mean, I can’t think of a single thing that essentially stops teaching and learning for 2-3 weeks every spring that could be cancelled, can you?
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In order to better care for myself and my mental health, I will be taking a leave from teaching. Anyone who knows me knows that the decision to do so was heart-breaking and wasn’t made lightly. It doesn’t feel good or right, but it is necessary.
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I’m starting to think there’s a reason we usually put all the kids together in the same room with us in order to teach them.
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Our English department meets weekly and we drive our own agenda. Today, we decided to stay in our own rooms and nap at our desks.
It was the best.
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No, our classrooms shouldn’t be places where students are taught to blindly hate America. They also shouldn’t be places where students are taught to blindly love it. Our students should be active, critically minded, empathetic participants in history, language, and literature.
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If you're looking for a way to help, we could really use some substitute teachers.
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I just don't understand the rush to put a bunch of kids and adults together in small rooms for long days right now.
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The best part of the end of the year is how things just really start to wind down, each day gets just a little bit easier than the one before it, and we get to relax.
I'm kidding. We are swimming in concrete against the current.
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To all those teachers heading into their first years: You got this. Love your kiddos, trust and respect them, and you’ll do great. Look for little wins and don’t be too hard on yourself when it doesn’t go perfect. Oh, do some things just because they’re fun.
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I don't know a single teacher who isn't struggling right now. I had to walk into the hallway and take a breath a couple times last week. If you're having a tough time, it's not just you, not just your school. Our work is hard.
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My art teacher from HS emailed today, just to check up. The man was last my teacher in 1999, and he drove 6 hours to my wedding (my wife and I met, essentially, in his class). We've been emailing back and forth all day, him looking at art from my kid. Teachers are goddamn great.
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I have three teacher candidates in my room. All have never heard before that Full Moons impact schools and classrooms. Teachers... do you believe in the Full Moon Effect?
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My kid has an English teacher who is always a minute or two late to class, so all the kids in class are bringing in potatoes on Monday to put on his desk.
All I can think about is that this teacher has kids pulling pranks on him after two weeks of school and he must be awesome.
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I feel like I've been clenching my jaw for about six months.
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My god, some of you have been home this long with toddlers or teenagers. I am sorry.
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I can't wait to teach again, to do work that is meaningful and joyful to me.
I'm also nowhere near ready to go back to school.
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Add Teacher Appreciation Week to list of things that are impossible for admin to get right this year.
Here is what I want:
- Call it an early year
- Nothing else
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If you really want to wind your class up, ask them what color each subject is.
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This year, the students need more from us, and many teachers have less to give. Something has to change for the good of all of us.
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I just want students to be safe in our schools. By that, I mean safe from disease and also racism, transphobia, homophobia, and sexism and also from guns and sexual assault.
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My school is switching to asynchronous learning for three weeks. Families decide if their student will be in the building or not, but we'll be better situated for staff shortages.
I'll be thinking about what kind of high-interest, creative, self-directed project we can do.
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Man, I'm a teacher and I love teachers... but I think we could posthumously give this one to George Floyd or to BLM Protestors or nurses or retail workers who have to deal with anti-maskers or Dr. Fauci or delivery drivers or, or, or ...
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I really hate the "how come kids can do tiktok and snapchat but can't do online school" memes. Let's not blame the kids for this being really, really hard.
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With my wife and kid gone for the weekend, I decided to surprise them by making our random basement room into a theater (with scene painting workshop, prop and costume areas, and a row of seats from before the Riverview theater remodel). There will be kid musicals made here.
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I get that homework and big reading requirements are used in part during high school in preparation for larger workloads in college... but... in college you don't spend 35 hours a week in classes, right?
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I sent a calendar invite to students for the first day of class tomorrow, and the number of them that are answering "maybe"...
I dunno, it gives me a little extra hope for the year.
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Imagine what equity work in schools could look like if it didn't prioritize the comfort of white staff members.
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I'm not here for any conversation about a lost year or any kind of deficit students are carrying after living through a year of compounded and concentrated tragedy.
The kids have been incredible, have shown a resilience that should have never been asked of them. I hate this.
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It’s no teacher’s fault at all, and in fact this group in particular is moving goddamn mountains, but distance learning for Kindergarten is the saddest shit.
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The idea that after they get through this year we would ask students to do anything that looks like “academic recovery” is deeply distressing to me.
If we have programs, I hope kids are making, playing, planting, performing, healing, and connecting.
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The thing I spend the most time on with the smallest return is grading. I know feedback is important, but I've yet to find a way to make it really impactful without also taking an absurd amount of time.
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I'd like to resubmit my idea to make the first day above 60 degrees in MN a statewide "Sun Day" where all schools and businesses are closed and we all go outside and smile at each other and say, 'nice out, huh?'
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In my second or third year of teaching, I set random annual google calendar events for January & February that just say things like, “Dude, relax,” and “Don’t forget to love this” and “Whatever it is probably isn’t that big a deal.” They’ve never not been helpful.
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I just posted a new piece: 'Leaving Teaching Was Hard, but Not as Hard as Staying.'
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I’m no master of brain science, but is anyone else worried that our brains (and those of our students) are in such a state of disruption that the idea of long term retention of anything right now is ridiculous?
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Sometimes I text people I work with "missed you at the meeting" when there wasn't one, or "why aren't you at school?" on days we aren't supposed to be there.
I'm a monster.
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I accept late work at any time for full credit. I want their grade to reflect their abilities, not their organization. If students are behind or never turn things in on time, that means conversations with them and with home and other consequences, but not tied to grades.
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I put this together a few years ago, it's a section from my first book about student rights. I made a poster for my room and I love it. Feel free to use it if you'd like.
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We all want schools wide open, no masks, no distance. We all want the pandemic over, to experience the world without the constant fear of it.
It’s just that some of us think the best way to end this is pretend that it’s over, and some of us know we need to protect each other.
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I’m seriously looking at a health leave for the first time in my career. I can feel my heart starting to race as I walk into the building every day. It’s not the kids.
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A student just emailed me to thank me for letting them doodle and fidget during online calls and for not making the first week too overwhelming and also included a picture of a goat she drew today during our lesson.
This did my heart good.
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If you are getting take out or delivery or shopping at a grocery store, now is not the time to complain about service or mistakes or anything. Pay up, tip huge, say thank you for all the people still working in high-exposure jobs so you get to eat.
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Looking at a gym full of teachers at conferences tonight, my kid and I decided that Language Arts teachers are by far the easiest to pick out by looks alone.
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I just published An Incomplete (yet heavily annotated) List of Things That Don’t Help Me as a Teacher Right Now¹.
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Teaching is just saying "this is a tough time of year" over and over again until Summer.
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I won’t be making a regimented daily schedule for my kid. It may work great for some kids in some homes, but honestly, scheduling learning in neat blocks is one of the things I wish we did less of. We’re going to learn and work, but home school won’t feel like school at home.
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In my dream last night, I wrote a message to each of my former students who has died. It seemed to take all night.
The weight of teaching is so much more than the stress and the hours. It is inviting so many lives into yours, loving so many people.
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I’m at a professional development thing and they’ve given us an hour for lunch. What in gods name do people do for an HOUR of lunch?
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Email from my kid's district is pretty telling.
1: So many COVID cases that they're going to stop informing parents of exposures in secondary.
2: Please apply to be a bus driver.
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Once again I have spent many hours this weekend on school stuff and have not yet started to plan and prepare my actual lessons. Cool.
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Remember being a teenager and taking a drive just to get out of the house and listen to music loud and be by yourself? No reason that can't be a thing again.
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I really love teaching and kids. I really hate setting my alarm for 5:15am.
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In case it may be helpful…. my classroom, and what I do the first week to build a community that values conversation and mutual respect.
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I need to know this all feels better when there are kids there to work with and worry about and learn from. Online or hybrid or whatever... the kids make it better, right?
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Things we can do without internet access AND without using a packet:
- Write essays or stories or poems or journals or plays
- Solve problems or riddles or develop them
- Build stuff or design stuff
- Draw stuff
- Make maps
- Plan a town or city or school
.... what else?
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At conferences, there’s always a point where I just can’t learn any more new stuff, and I just need time to sit and think about it and maybe take a walk. Thank god our students aren’t like that at all,
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Teachers, if you are worried about what you can do, you are in luck. Schools can and should be one of our most powerful tools for permanent change. We can all look at our own practices and policies and ask how they are helping or hurting.
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