Joshua Block

Humanities Teacher at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Passionately believes that education is a tool to help people understand and transform their individual and collective realities.

School Culture in a First Year School

While I was in Graduate School I was involved with a brand new charter school. The experience was very eye opening for me. Below is part of a paper I wrote about the school culture and the connection between school culture and pedagogy: Feelings of teacher alienation and frustration are significant to this paper in […]Read Post ›

Writing Autobiography

This is the beginning section of the Writing Autobiography that I wrote in Graduate School. It’s amazing to think about how different my early educational experiences were from the early experiences of many of my students… When I was young writing was natural. It made me feel good. Words flowed. New ideas were constantly being […]Read Post ›

My foundations

This essay from Graduate School is fascinating for me to read again. My teaching has evolved so much yet I am still so rooted in the ideas that preoccupied me as a beginning teacher. Below is a section that reflects on my path towards teaching: The point of departure for my teaching career is more […]Read Post ›

Literacy Autobiography

This is part of a Literacy Autobiography I wrote in one of Susan Lytle’s classes in graduate school. I couldn’t help making a couple of small edits… Thanks for such meaningful assignments Susan! One of my earliest recollections of the idea of reading was a conversation I had with my father. He was sitting in […]Read Post ›