The deficit atmosphere in schools – unsustainable workloads, lack of resources, minimal supports, terrible pay – contributes to culling, writes Dina Strasser. Rather than seeing a complete image of our lives, the dark and the light, we’re at risk of letting our empathy leach away.
Health Insurance / I Will Screw This Up
by Dina Strasser · Published 11/23/2025 · Last modified 11/24/2025
While it’s very tempting to put lesson planning, copier toner, and grading far above taking a dive into teacher health insurance, Dina Strasser is here to tell you that it is one of most important things you can do as an educator – worth at least two of your planning periods or more.
I Will Screw This Up / Teaching Today
by Dina Strasser · Published 09/24/2025 · Last modified 10/01/2025
For Dina Strasser, the Pledge is not a real-time reflection of our nation’s status. It’s an expression of the liberty and justice for all towards which we strive. “Most of all, it is a pledge: a commitment. A promise that school professionals physically make and renew each day.”
If you teach students from immigrant families, EL teacher Dina Strasser is offering her list of “what can I do?” actions to prepare and support them. How you honor your duty of care depends on your students’ needs, your district’s policies and resources, and your political environment.
To boil “theme” down into a testable statement is to compress the wild, wonderful world of literature into a parking meter. This is far less than useful to our students, especially in our fraught and confusing times – and it is far less than they deserve, writes teacher Dina Strasser.
I Will Screw This Up / Real Self Care
by Dina Strasser · Published 02/08/2025 · Last modified 02/09/2025
When teacher Jay Wamsted tweeted about why and how teachers should leave school on time and not work at home or on weekends, he lit up social media as teachers took sides for and against his proposition. In Dina Strasser’s interview, Wamsted explains and expands on his thinking.
Teacher Dina Strasser agrees that our schools need to be spaces where students have the freedom and support to come to their own reasoned political conclusions about the world. “But it is a mistake to assume public education as a whole is, or should be, politically neutral. It is not.”
“Not every management situation involves an innocent mistake from a student,” writes teacher Dina Strasser, “but in middle school, I will venture to say that most of them do. Making curiosity a management habit of mind allows both student and teacher to reap the rewards.”
Facing current education’s false head/heart dichotomy and with the concept of what it means to be a teacher – so stressed in recent years – now stretched to the breaking point, veteran educator Dina Strasser is searching for truths toward which she can strive.
Dina Strasser has noticed a tangible impact when her classroom door is closed on a regular basis, as security suggests. “I am isolated, physically and socially.” Students are less likely to wander in. Teachers to wave or stop by. So she’s leaving it locked but open. Defiantly.
