New England Basecamp's Blog

Our organization has had the pleasure of serving educators all over Rhode Island and other parts of the New England region and sometimes the conversations we have in our shared spaces spark incredible ideas. In May, at a Culturally Responsive Teaching Application session, I had the privilege of speaking with an educator about the need for more resources around allyship and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community in his building. What began as a casual back and forth inspired the programming outlined below, and spurred connections with other organizations and individuals leading this work around Rhode Island.  We hope to really expand this for next year, and if you are someone who would like to partner with us, we’d love to talk more. One observation that became glaringly apparent is that the transformative, deliberate efforts to improve outcomes and create safe environments for LGBTQIA+ youth and families in our schools and communities is siloed. Many people are working on this, but ha...

  Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021 - For Teachers May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Let’s join together in celebrating, uplifting, and recognizing the stories and voices of Asian Pacific Americans. Hate is not welcome in our classrooms, but sometimes it is hard to know where to begin supporting these efforts. This website is dedicated to bringing effective, affordable, and accurate resources to your classroom. Browse from The Library of Congress to the National Archives and more. Design your own lessons, borrow theirs, or do a combination of the two.

  Jewish American Heritage Month Resources From the ADL In 2006 by Congressional resolution and Presidential recognition the United States began honoring Jewish American Heritage Month in May. This article focuses on ways to incorporate this celebration into your normal classroom practice, at any grade level. Antisemitism may feel like something that was prevalent during the WWII era but it has been on the rise lately. Educating yourself and your students about Jewish American Heritage can help combat antisemitism.

Are Schools Ready to Tackle the Mental Health Crisis? (Walker, 2018) Revisiting this pre-pandemic article with a post-pandemic lens highlights the urgency of an intentional approach to mental health in schools. The past two years have been full of immeasurable loss, trauma, and grief for students, families, and communities nationwide. What was described as a mental health “crisis” prior to the pandemic can only be considered an emergency as we navigate our new reality. This article’s emphasis on proactive, sustaining support frameworks and partnerships between teachers, mental health providers, community, and family members inspires us to consider the possibilities for schools and districts in the coming months. Now that we have borne witness to the destructive potential of the gaps in our social safety nets, we have a unique chance to re-envision our schools. We envision schools that provide proactive, systematic mental health support for all students, and leverage the collective wis...

  Article Round Up Week 3 Teachers Opt for More Leniency, and Get Better Work   Educators have had to adapt to respond to the many challenges of hybrid and remote learning. One teacher describes how extending grace and saying “yes” to her students resulted in dramatically higher levels of engagement. Building a Sustainable Future - One Classroom at a Time!   This article includes a feature on Julie’s former colleague! Read to learn about different ways science educators are making environmental science relevant and hands-on through lived experiences and project-based learning. Respect: Find Out What It Means to Me...Actually Ask Your Students As researchers and practitioners push to center equity in student climate and discipline initiatives, many of us are grappling with the subjectivity of the term “respect” across cultures and contexts. This blog post from PBIS apps includes some concrete strategies for elevating student voice and critically analyzing what agreements a...

  Who I am…      My name is Jessica Tuttle and I am a high school English teacher at North Smithfield High School in North Smithfield, RI. Although I have been teaching in NS for 6 years, I have been an English and Writing Teacher for 21 years. For 15 years, I was a college professor and a member of the English Departments at the University of Rhode Island and Salve Regina University. Although I loved teaching college students, I decided to become certified in Secondary Ed English because I knew my experience at the college level would benefit high school students for the demands of college writing. I also longed to be a part of students’ daily lives, which was a facet that was missing with college students since they were only with me for a short amount of time and only for a couple days during the week. What drives me as an English teacher is allowing students the opportunity to explore themselves through literature, and by reading other writers, giving t...