Jennifer Lauren’s blog

Does school kill creativity?

2009-11-07T04:19:56Z

No, it doesn’t have to. No matter how constrained a teacher is, I’ve determined that school does not have to be a creativity killer. To apply some ancient, wise words (2 Corinthians 4:8-9): “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; per...

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Homework: Not so helpful, after all?

2009-09-27T20:55:00Z

I was very excited to find this post. I’ve been meaning to read Khon’s “Homework Myth” ever since my 6th grade teacher, with whom I am still in touch and who now teaches high school math, mentioned it to me. She agrees with his thesis. I, on the...

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My Community Assessment

2009-09-27T18:55:35Z

I really enjoyed the product of this assignment -- even if the process wasn't enjoyable. Isn't that the way research is? View a pdf of the document here.

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Blog 5: Realizing the Potential for Overreaction

2009-05-02T21:30:50Z

As faculty, if I worked at a school that closed in fear of the pandemic of the swine flu, I would find it to be an overreaction. I would be upset to have to stretch out the school year at the behest of city officials and decision-makers who are o...

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Blog 4: The impact of school-sanctioned privacy invasion on students’ academic success

2009-04-25T00:51:10Z

As I heard Savannah from Arizona tell about how one day at school brought on stomach ulcers, her reluctance to return to school for months, and the loss of her friends because they were embarrassed of her, I couldn’t help but think of my own soft...

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Aspirations for Authentic Assessment

2009-04-11T17:00:24Z

Assessment in my classroom now has evolved to a good balance of authentic and traditional assessment. In the last term of this schoolyear, I have made a point to have equal amounts of each in my gradebook. For authentic assessment, I have done...

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[Required Blog 2: Visions of Summer School]

2009-03-02T04:49:49Z

My vision for summer school 2009 builds off a few lucid points made in the article “Summer School: Unfulfilled Promise.” In light of the article’s sidebar “The Summer Slide,” and what sociologists David Stark and Annette Lareau have found, I c...

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[Required Blog 1- Summer planning]

2009-01-29T03:38:57Z

Quality communication, curriculum renewal, coordination among the body of educators – all of these are the ideals teachers yearn for, and which Heidi Hayes Jacob believes are tenable when teachers commit to the when that is implicit in calenda...

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Why should someone join the Mississippi Teacher Corps?

2008-11-27T06:02:48Z

Now would be the time for me to practice what I preach – that is, how to write with the purpose of persuading an audience. I teach my students how to do this mode of writing. Now I shall “utilize” it myself. Shall I defer to ethos (an appeal t...

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My Community

2008-10-31T00:35:21Z

My community, Belhaven, is like a Wendy's Frosty: delightful, energizing, and my first pick. Every morning, its pleasant residential streets and heart-calming autumn air (that smells faintly of fireplaces, yawning their last sighs from burning thr...

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