About Me
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
The War on Memory
This summer has been filled with stories of Turkey removing Darwin from school curricula. But this is a small issue in balance: Erdogan and Turkey’s ruling AKP understand well that control of education and history means control of national identity. And the end of freedom.
Some Hope for Holly Springs: Royal Oak Interact in Mississippi
Ten years ago, my Interact (youth Rotary) students told me that they wanted to do more than simply stage charity drives—they wanted to go out and help people directly. But as a high school English teacher, I hardly knew where to begin. On top of simply...
What We Hope For, And What Comes Between Us
Hours after arriving in the United States and I am wrestling with questions that have dominated my weekend and been drawn more acute by it. They are questions about not merely the gulfs of politics and ideology, but those of language. And not just about differing...
Cuba Redux
It’s been some years since I took a “Reality Tour” to Cuba. And while I have many memories of that trip, there are some parts of Cuba I worried about then, cracks in the communist walls against capitalist media and marketing that I feared might undermine some of the...
Student ‘Grit’ Isn’t the Answer to Meet Educational Goals
Second in a series to The Oakland Press about education reforms and the classroom experience. One of the reasons I have loved being a teacher for so long is the marvelous complexity and dynamic change in my day to day activities. Nothing when done well is...
Key Education Objectives Should Remain Amidst Reform Measures
The following op-ed was written as the first of a series for The Oakland Press, part of my work as an EdVoice Fellow. Is it possible for a teacher of nearly 30 years to change his thinking about what he teaches? When I was going to school in the 1970s, an era...
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