This week, we talk to Michael Bonner. You might know him as the rapping teacher who was on the Ellen Degeneris show a couple years back. Besides turning around his classes at South Greenville Elementary in North Carolina, Bonner wrote a book called “Get Up or Give Up: How I Almost Gave Up on Teaching.”
He doesn’t have a program or initiative that people can adopt, but he has a clear understanding of what makes a successful teacher, with advice that applies to anyone who works on helping children be successful in academics, and in life.
Here’s my favorite quote from the interview: “We need to realize that with every child we come into contact with we have the ability to steer them into greatness.”
Here’s a link to the Georgetown University report on uninsured children I mention in the final thought.
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This story comes from a partnership between the Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and the Herald-Tribune, funded by The Patterson Foundation, to cover school readiness, attendance, summer learning, healthy readers and parent engagement. Read more stories at https://www.gradelevelreadingsuncoast.net/category/solutions-journalism-partnership/.
