What started this whole journey...

As I mentioned in my first post, the inspiration for this blog came from a class I'm wrapping up at Eastern Michigan University entitled Writing, Public Policy, and Public Writing which is designed to help find ways to give teachers a voice in a time when policy makers are using teachers as scapegoats for all that is wrong with education.

The theme of my project for this class is teacher retention because I feel like this is education's dirty little secret that no one talks about. For many reasons that I could write in a whole dissertation, teachers are leaving the classroom at an alarming rate - and we're especially seeing it now with the spate of public resignation letters flooding the internet.

With so many teachers leaving though, who is choosing to stay, and why?

I gathered up my Twitter PLN and asked them a very simple (and yet complex) question: With all the negativity surrounding our profession today, what makes you stay? This was the result. I hope it will help to begin a healthy, positive dialogue about how we can celebrate and recognize teachers as the professionals and heroes that they are.