Cathy Vandewater

While good on paper, the best paying states are often the most expensive places for teachers to live. Are the sacrifices teachers are making to teach affecting their ability to educate?

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The District of Columbia pays its teachers better than any district in the country – more than $71,000 a year, on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2015 report.

But before you pack your bags for the nation’s capital, consider that D.C. is also a very expensive p...

If you’re a fan of Orange is the New Black (OITNB), you may have been shocked by inmate Taystee’s abrupt return to Litchfield Correctional just three episodes after her release. However, if you’ve worked in the education department of a correctional facility, you’re more than familiar with “bounce-backs,” or as Alice*, a teacher who has worked at three correctional facilities for almost 20 years correctly calls it, “recidivism.”
Teachers like Alice* understand the importance of recidivism, or...

Coffices (coffee shop offices) are not for every type of work. If your work involves, say, a Skype audition for a killer virus movie, probably work from home? But if you’re more a headphones on, spreadsheets out worker bee type who likes a little background noise, the coffee shop office is a perfect venue for your freelance life, or even the occasional remote day.
Of course, not all coffices are created equal. The best have free wifi, plenty of power outlets, and a laptop-friendly vibe—that’s...

"Privileged kids claiming disadvantage will not make an inspiring new generation of leaders." —Amy Chua, in a recent editorial for the Daily Beast.
"Teaching for the test," a long-time plague to bored teachers and unconventional students, may have been reinforcing the exact traits in generation Y that their new bosses and older coworkers despise. You know the litany: wanting to be awarded for participation instead of results; demanding instant gratification; preferring to handle quick, concre...

It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot: “Are you still doing zero waste right now?”
It’s surprising to me, because, true, bulk bins aren’t really a thing right now. But I am relying on my favorite reusable around-the-house items and, when I have to buy in packaging, I’m buying in bulk (like $50-pounds-of-flour-bulk) because I honestly want to avoid the grocery store as much as possible lately.

Here are a few strategies to keep your waste low and your grocery trips few and far between.

Unless you’re getting your AC fix by standing in front of stores with their doors open illegally, squatting in friends’ central air apartments, or crafting your own makeshift “freezer fan” version, beating the heat in New York can be brutal on your energy bill. But while you can splurge on $75-a-day hotel pools to escape a hot apartment, note that Olympic-sized outdoor pools are all over the five boroughs and ready for action, and they’re free. No seriously, they’re completely free.
There are...

A fun "The Shining" spoof filmed at the office for a company Halloween video contest with a two-man crew.

Teacher Appreciation Week may be over, but while we've all taken time to thank the teachers we know IRL, let's also take a second to shout out the education Twittersphere. These tweeters continually inform, motivate, and entertain us on the topic of education, across all subjects, age ranges, and points-of-view.
They're our favorites--who are yours? Share below!
Followers: 137K
Follow for:
Education technology
Student development
Teaching methods
Social media how-to's
Edchats
Steven is a spea...

“Complete a pre-MBA course at Oxford Business School, become proficient at a musical instrument or learn another language.”
According to Tracey Spicer during her recent TED talk, that’s what women could do with the 3,276 hours they currently spend grooming for work. Oh, and if they groom too much, they might need those extra hours for a second job: “If a woman doubles her grooming time, her earnings decrease on average 3.4 per cent,” Spicer says. “That’s because it’s a non-market activity, li...

Anais Nin once said, "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." If that's true, every guy on Tinder is a throbbing dong. How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, I spoke to about 30 different guys on the dating app strictly in Anais Nin dirty talk and sexy quotes (from her very hot letters to fellow sexy '30s writer Henry Miller and from her writings, like Delta of Venus) and guys, it did nothing to lessen the usual deluge of stupid pick up lines, oblivious small tal...

Internships have been in the spotlight a lot lately, but for all the wrong reasons: unhappy interns.
It’s not a new story — interns have long gone unpaid, unthanked and sent on one too many coffee runs. But a recent slew of class action suits raises the question: where does opportunity end and exploitation begin?
Though it’s up to the courts to decide what’s fair labor in the realm of interning, you should know that not all unpaid gigs are equal. It’s hard to judge from the outset, but many c...

The benefit of professional development (PD) for teachers is well known: improving teaching practices means greater student achievement. What’s less frequently acknowledged is that PD programs are often so wracked with issues that they’re rendered ineffective, if not downright detrimental.
Impractical, infrequent, identical—teachers’ complaints about PD programs run the gamut. Unless school administrators address these problems, they risk wasting not only time, energy, funding, and other scar...