Monday and Tuesday Monday and Tuesday were all about performance-based assessments. I’ve been wrestling with a question that probably crosses a lot of teachers’ minds at some point: Am I doing enough to prepare my students for what comes next? Most social studies classes lean on multiple-choice tests, short answers, and essays. I rarely do. My students spend more time creating, connecting, and explaining.

This week in 103 was packed with movement, discussion, and meaningful writing. The lessons built on each other, using EduProtocols that pushed students to analyze, connect, and create rather than memorize. We used CyberSandwich for deep reading and partner discussion, Snorkl for instant writing feedback, SWBST Sketch and Tell to help students visualize and summarize key events, Map and Tell to analyze spatial change, and Twelve-Topic Stitch-Up to review and connect ideas across multiple units.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a few different lives.My parents are divorced, so I grew up splitting time between two worlds, a suburban neighborhood and stretches of country backroads. I’ve been on tractors, in tobacco fields, in college classrooms, and on tennis courts. There’s some country in me. I love country music, I work hard, and I’m not afraid to roll up my sleeves and get after it.

Monday - Mercantilism Rack and Stack Tuesday and Wednesday - Stations, Questions Friday - Colonial Government Vocab, Finish the Drawing Monday The Question That Drove the Lesson This week’s focus was one word with a big question behind it: How did mercantilism shape opportunity and inequality in the 13 colonies? Starting with Context We began with an Annotate and Tell that served two purposes.

This week we wrapped up our last unit and began a new one. The transition brought a nice mix of reflection and fresh energy as students finished their Netflix series projects and shifted into our study of the 13 Colonies. We moved from storytelling and creative thinking to deeper analysis and discussion, setting the stage for our new compelling question: Was colonial America a land of opportunity or inequality?

The 13 Colonies Inquiry Unit Link The Common Mistake A lot of people open ChatGPT, type “make me a lesson plan,” and press go. It spits out something that looks ready to teach, but it doesn’t know your room. It doesn’t know your pacing, your standards, your textbook, or your teaching style. If you really want ChatGPT to plan with you, you have to treat it like a coplanner, not a shortcut.

AI can be a real time saver when it comes to making quizzes. I’ve used ChatGPT plenty of times to build question banks I can plug right into Gimkit or Quizizz. It’s fast, it’s flexible, and it gets you about 80% of the way there. But if you don’t know a few key things, that other 20% can turn into a mess real quick.

This unit started with a question that actually mattered:If you lived in England in the 1600s, would you have left and risked it all? That single question framed the entire unit. Every activity, reading, and discussion tied back to it. When students know the “why,” it changes how they engage, instead of memorizing colony facts, they were weighing survival, opportunity, and risk.

This has been on my mind lately. Teachers (myself included) often say we’re doing certain practices like retrieval, inquiry, student choice, feedback cycles, or collaboration. We believe we are. We even tell others we are. But when you really stop and look at the day-to-day flow of your classroom, sometimes the truth is we’re not. Not in the way we imagine.

I’m going to frame this week’s post around the beginning, middle, and end of the week. Once again, our rhythm was shaped by shortened schedules and shadow days, which meant adjusting plans and finding ways to keep learning moving forward. To work around the interruptions, I started the week with a take-home test, then rolled out a new unit built around a compelling question: …

I’m learning quickly that my school has a rhythm all its own—one filled with odd schedules, unexpected interruptions, and lots of moving parts. Some days it feels like just when I find my teaching groove, the bell schedule changes or half the class disappears for a shadow day. Other days, Mass, assemblies, or leadership experiences shift the tempo in ways that make planning a clean, flowing lesson nearly impossible.

I feel like I am starting to hit a rhythm. There are still days when I wonder if I am just doing random things, trying to find consistency and purpose. But slowly, I can feel the stride taking shape. The protocols are giving me structure, and the students are responding with genuine engagement. This week showed how much can happen when we stack the right activities.

I’ve been coaching tennis for a long time, and I can still hear the echoes from courts all over: “Bend your knees.” “Finish your swing.” “Low to high.” Those lines are so common they almost fade into the background. But I never really bought into that approach. To me, coaching was never just about repeating mechanical reminders. What shaped me as a coach is the belief that tennis is a game of awareness.

I’m discovering as the year moves along that life at the Villa comes with a steady stream of interruptions to the normal school rhythm. Practice high school placement tests, walk-a-thons, shadow visits, pep rallies, and more. Honestly, it feels like way more than I ever experienced in public schools. But here’s the thing, it’s all good. These moments create a climate and culture that is unlike any place I’ve been, and I’m learning to embrace them as part of what makes this community special.

Being at a new school means I’m living inside a learning curve. One is the learning curve of new procedures, figuring out how things run in a building that isn’t second nature to me yet. The other is learning about my students, how they learn, what they know, and what still feels brand new. Technology has been the most eye-opening part.

Week two felt like a reset button. Last week I tried to do too much too fast with Chromebooks, logins, and codes. It was overwhelming. This week, I went back to the basics. Paper, pencils, and simpler routines gave students (and me) the space to breathe. We still pulled out the tech: Quizizz for Fast and Curious, Google Slides for Thin and Thick slide, but we balanced it with Frayers, CyberSandwich, and Sketch & Tell-o on paper.

This week was my first full stretch as the new 6th, 7th, and 8th grade social studies teacher at St. Ursula Villa. With only three days on the books, I do not have the time or space to reflect on every class and every moment. Instead, I am going to highlight some lessons that stood out. Not because it was the best, but because it captured what I want this year to feel like.

Teaching social studies in 2025 is not the same as it was even five years ago. My middle schoolers live in a world where AI can spit out an answer in less time than it takes them to find the question mark on the keyboard. That changes things. But here is the key: it does not change why we teach social studies.

This year brings something new. After a long run in public education, I have made the switch to a small private school, St. Ursula Villa. I will be teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade social studies. The change already feels right. The school is close to everything I do, where I live, where I coach tennis, where life actually happens. If I need to run up to school, it will not feel like an all-day event.

Every so often, I go back and reread a blog post called Is Your Lesson a Grecian Urn? (It's a great post from th Cult of Pedagogy). I’ve shared it in PD sessions, sent it to colleagues, and maybe most importantly, used it to check myself when I start planning something that’s more “fun” than it is valuable. The first time I read it, it hit me like a well-placed serve in the ribs.

There are some people you can learn something from every time you talk to them. That was Scott Petri or me. Whether it was during a presentation, a text thread, or a chat about lesson design, he had a way of dropping a sentence or two that would make me rethink what I was doing in my classroom. He helped me see Social Studies through a different lens.

It wasn’t some big dramatic moment. Just a soggy afternoon, a rained out practice, and a quiet conversation in the parking lot. I turned to my coach and said, “I just want to be better.” Not the best.Not great.Just better. At the time, I was 7th or 8th on the team at NKU. No scholarship. No spotlight. I wasn’t bad, I was just…

I couldn’t feed a ball to save my life. That’s where it started. I was a teenager working at Ivy Hills Country Club, learning how to roll clay courts, line baselines, and scrape off the dried teneco when it got too thick. I knew how to hustle. I knew how to show up. But I didn’t know I had something to give.

My parents divorced when I was young. I spent most of my time with my mom and stepdad; and his mom, Irene. For years, I wondered what to call her. Was she my grandma? Step-grandma? Something in-between? I spent too long trying to figure out a title, but looking back now, it didn’t matter. She didn’t need a label. She was just Irene.