Education Week Video » Teaching

When Wendy Kopp was a college senior she had an idea: what if, as she believed, some of America’s top college students chose teaching over higher-paying professional jobs? She decided to put her idea into action and at 21 years old, Kopp raised 2.5 million dollars and started Teach for America in 1990. Today, Teach for [...]

Frank McCourt was a Pulitzer-prize winning author and a teacher in New York City public schools for 27 years. He passed away on Sunday, July 19, 2009 at the age of 78. In 2000, McCourt talked with John Merrow about teaching–what it was like when he began and how it changed over the years. Listen to [...]

The campaign both for and against California’s Proposition 8 was heated and costly (only the Presidential campaign cost more). Among other charges, opponents of gay marriage claimed that homosexuality would be taught in schools. What about the schools? What are the rights and responsibilities of gay teachers? Of gay students? What do they think [...]

William Lockridge served as an elected official on the DC school board for over 9 years. Now through mayoral control, the school board has been dissolved leaving Mr. Lockridge and other community members with little say in what is happening in DC schools.

Principal L. Nelson Burton must raise test scores at Washington, DC’s troubled Coolidge Senior High School – but he says that half of his teachers are not effective.

Should a remedial teacher know why her student has been unsuccessful in the past? Joliet Junior College Professors Edy Alderson and Kathleen Perryman, who telephone their students at home and even offer rewards like chocolate bars, say yes.

Community college professor Steve Zuro is doing all he can to help his remedial math students, but only half pass the class. What’s going wrong?

John Merrow moderates a symposium with the finalists for the Broad Prize for Urban Education.   Which district will come out on top?  The envelope, please . . .

A conversation with a college professor who seems to accept student mediocrity as inevitable. Paulette Kurzer, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona and teacher of over 20 years, discusses how she deals with students who don’t pay attention or do the work.

A young adjunct professor would like nothing more than a full time teaching position that would put him on the long road towards tenure, but most of his requests for job interviews go unanswered.

Noise, cliques, uncertainty and arguments may not be so bad for high school students. Veteran educator Ted Sizer provides insights that go against conventional wisdom and explains why most American high schools are barely good enough.

UCLA psychologist James Stigler thinks he has at least a partial explanation for the learning gap: he says there’s a teaching gap.

Chadwick describes the program she has developed to help teachers understand how they can use Twain’s racially charged material as a productive tool in understanding American history.

The author of more than 40 books, including 36 Children and The Discipline of Hope, Kohl shares the major lessons he’s learned from a lifetime in the classroom.

School districts across the country are facing a critical shortage of teachers. What does it take to prepare a teacher for the classroom? Art Levine has some ideas.

Lynn Olson discusses how the growing emphasis on standards and testing affects the way teachers teach and students learn.

Education historian Larry Cuban says computers and the internet have not actually changed the way teachers teach and students learn–at least not yet.

Howard Gardner, author of Multiple Intelligences, talks about the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness in education.