With the coming of 2020, many educators are giving thought about making New Year’s resolutions that will help them be better teachers. If this describes you, here are six suggestions for constructive resolutions you may consider.

First, establish a positive attitude. Approaching the next semester with a cheerful and upbeat attitude will be of great benefit to you, and it will also encourage your students to do the same. Teachers know how powerful modeling can be. Model a positive attitude for your kids.

Second, get your classroom organized. Clean up your desk and storage areas. Design an extra lesson that can be used independently of your regular curriculum, to be prepared just in case something unexpected happens such as a lock-down. Think of ways you can delegate classroom jobs to your students. Create an emergency substitute teacher plan and make it easy to find.

Third, think of ways you can reduce the amount of work you take home with you. Click on this link to read an article about ways to reduce your paper load: 12 Time-Saving Assessment Strategies.

Fourth, design a lesson for your students that will encourage healthy living habits.  Present a lesson on good eating habits or the benefits of physical fitness. Consider incorporating some sort of movement in your classroom activities.

Fifth, experiment with new instructional technique or updated technology. Studies show that the human brain craves novelty. Changing things up a bit will be stimulating for you, and for your students, too.

Last, take good care of yourself. Create balance between your work and your personal life. And be sure to get plenty of rest. Taking care of yourself is one of the best ways to take care of your students.

Have a wonderful Winter Break, and a successful second semester! And Happy New Year to you all of you!

As I conduct my research about the numerous talented and dedicated Chalkboard Champions in American history, I sometimes come across terms that describe institutions of learning that were unfamiliar to me before I did my research. This was the case when I first came across the term “normal school.”

From my study, I learned that a normal school is an educational institution which provided training for high school graduates who had decided to become teachers. Today, these institutions are typically called “teachers’ colleges.” Much like teacher training colleges today, the original normal schools offered advanced courses in subjects that teachers would be expected to teach to their students. The school also provided instruction on how to organize and present lessons, what today we would call pedagogy and curriculum design. The term “normal school” derived from the intention of establishing teaching standards or norms.

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in 1823 by Samuel Read Hall in Concord, Vermont. Samuel Read Hall was an educator who, while serving as a headmaster of an academy, quickly discerned that the teachers in his employ needed to normalize or standardize their base of knowledge and their instructional practices. And so the first normal school in the United States was formed, based on models already founded in France and Germany.

The first state-sponsored normal school was established in 1839 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1839. That educational institution later became Framingham State University, and is depicted in the sketch above.

Originally, both public and private normal schools offered a two-year course beyond the high school level, but in the 20th century, teacher training requirements were extended to a minimum of four years.

To read more about normal schools, see this link to the New World Encyclopedia