Mining For Hidden Gems

When my kids were younger and we scoured the shelves of our public library for new and interesting books more often, we came across a series called Magic Eyes.   Each page was a picture that looked like a colorful and abstract tessellation.  But if you trained your eyes to focus just right, a three dimensional image would "magically" pop out.  My mother was the best at it.  She would hold the book in front of her and cry "Wow!"  and "Wooh!", which would drive my daughter crazy because she couldn't see the hidden pictures.  I had to work at it, but when I figured out how to look in order to see the magic, it became easy to spot the hidden picture every time. When I read Katherine Bomer's book Hidden Gems, I realized that seeing the brilliance in student writing also required "magic eyes".  First you have to believe that there is something there worth seeing.  You have to look at every piece of writing believing that there is a gem, a str...

Last night my mother shared with me that her only regret in life is not having gotten a college degree.  Back in 1960 Iran, she had won a spot in the very competitive higher education system's lottery and was studying social work when she met my father and married.  No one, not even my progressively minded father, questioned her choice to leave her studies for a life dedicated to her husband and children.  No one pointed out to her that she could finish her studies and then start her family, or that she could finish her studies, stay home with her children when they were young and then pursue a career, as I have done. Our role as teachers is changing drastically and dramatically.  We are no longer needed to provide knowledge to our students but to show them how to use that knowledge.  We are no longer the repository of all answers but the source of good and hard questions that push our students to think critically.  And most of all we are the ones who are...