Good Books for Christian Teachers–The Chosen by Chaim Potok

As an English teacher, I am often called upon to select appropriate books to teach in my classes. Since I am the lead teacher in my department, selecting high school novels falls upon me, and this task I take very seriously. As a Christian teacher, I understand that my job requires sensitivity, detailed consideration and [...]

Teaching Students How to Think, Not What to Think

Daniel, a 17-year-old blogger, was frustrated. In his post entitled, “Why I Closed the Oprah Post After 224 Comments,” he mourned the reasons for his frustration:
“I had hope for excellent dialogue. Yet i could not find a single point of entry. This discourse had taken off at a blazing speed only to find itself revolving [...]

Technology in the English Classroom

One of the greatest challenges that will be facing me next year is how to best utilize technology in the classroom, whether as an instructional tool, an assessment tool, or simply showing students how English and technology work together in today’s 21st century world. So far, our school is equipped with a fairly large computer [...]

Digital Portfolios

Currently, student-created digital portfolios are the latest trend, and it just makes sense. In today’s age of technology, digital literacy is fundamental for many of us pursuing careers. We place our resumes online, email attachments to employers, create our own websites, and read online journals. Tracking student progress throughout high school has been for me [...]

Audio Books Part 2

After communicating via email with the Recorded Books people, they explained what their company had to offer in terms of resources. So, as a follow up, I decided to post the email that was sent to me on this blog so that you could see for yourselves what Recorded Books can give you and how [...]

Recorded Books and Lesson Plans with Recordings

Some teachers are trying to find new ways of incorporating technology into their lesson plans in a way that is fun, inviting and reaches out to auditory learners. I happened across this blog site that contained some very interesting lesson plans using audio recordings and books. I invite you to check it out. In particular, [...]

Student Entrepreneurs

In our international Christian school, we find that neighboring schools are helping their students learn about business through a student entrepreneurship program. These programs help students learn how to develop, plan and carry out their own businesses while they are still in high school. Since many of our students are bilingual or even trilingual, they [...]

“But I Don’t Have Enough Time!”: Some Thoughts on Inclusion

International schools and Christian schools in general tend to have a high turn-over rate. At our school, people sign a standard 2-year contract that is renewable, but so far I am the veteran, having 5 consecutive years teaching at our school. Due to this high turn-over rate, we have realized the need to have an [...]

Developing Critical Thinkers Concerning Media

Recently, a colleague of mine gave up in frustration. Her objective was to develop critical thinkers about the media. Our students are daily bombarded with messages concerning sex, relationships, and immoral behaviors that she undertook to show responsibility for her part in instructing them to think through some of these negative messages instead of taking [...]