Media mention: Smagorinsky on improving school relationships
After leaving her job in frustration a year ago, an early-career English teacher in Georgia has returned to the classroom—but in a different school district.
Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education in UGA’s College of Education, discusses her decision to return as well as the relationships that revitalized her enthusiasm for teaching in a blog post for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“Her new district provides quite a contrast [to her previous teaching position],” he wrote in the blog. “At the school’s orientation before classes began in the fall, her superintendent spoke about the importance of human relationships, above all else. Not test scores. Not real estate values tied to test scores. No, he spoke compassionately about how everything follows from developing and fostering productive relationships within the district.”