Last March Kat Sibalwa, Byron Center High School teacher and BCEA co-president, was set to talk about MEA with soon‑to‑graduate aspiring educators at Grand Valley State University. Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly she was teaching from home with two small children and a husband working in health care. Had you presented to aspiring educators before? […]
When MEA member Ben Henri won this year’s Teachers Tournament on the long-running game show Jeopardy!, he returned home with something beyond the $100,000 in winnings. Henri found an extended support network in the educators he defeated for the grand prize. Of the 15 tournament competitors, 14 remained in touch months later – meeting virtually […]
One of the hardest things Nick Peruski has learned to do as a teacher in Huron Valley over the past decade is to let kids fail. Not letter-grade “F” fail. Peruski’s approach asks students in his high school business, multimedia, and web design classes to face challenges, develop and test solutions, and learn from what […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor As a self-described “Harry Potter nerd,” MEA member Ashley Calhoun has brought a bit of magic to her hometown of Homer, where she is now finishing her fourth year of teaching fourth grade. When the global COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings in Michigan to close in March, Calhoun was […]
While educators across the country are doing amazing things to help our students, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is using this crisis to push her education privatization agenda – this time proposing “microgrants” that sound very much like school voucher programs she’s pushed for years. “Once again, she’s tone deaf. She’s out of touch,” […]
New distance learning guidelines have been issued by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), taking into account that 500,000 of the state’s 1.5 million students – one-third of the K-12 school population – do not have home internet access. Mostly teacher written, the document is designed to help district administrators and local union leaders who […]
A fanciful watercolor painting titled, “Even Cows Deserve a Vacation, Bovine Beach” won the Best in Show Award at the 56th Annual MEA MAEA Art Acquisitions Purchase Exhibition. The piece was one of two accepted into the show from MEA-Retired member Thomas Thiery, a retired art teacher from Adrian. The painting features a dreamy depiction […]
By Glen Young English department chair Petoskey High School Educators in Michigan are certainly nodding agreement at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget proposal. We ELA types, however, have an added reason to applaud Whitmer’s plan. Along with per-pupil funding increases and Early Childhood improvements, Whitmer proposes a line-item for Poet Laureate, a writer […]
Stories by Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor MEA member Stefanie Sedlar was drawn to become an educator in two ways. She felt a strong desire to help at-risk kids find their way to success, and she believed a federal loan forgiveness program for teachers would help her “afford” to make less income than other college-educated […]
As we enter statewide standardized testing season, I find myself reflecting on this school year and the series of articles I have written about the Read by Grade Three Law. I think about the main point I wanted to make in sharing my experiences and concerns with the law. It’s this—that ultimately our voices need to be heard […]
