Blog – Josh Stumpenhorst

States of Running

Posted on July 4, 2020 by stumpteacher

For anyone who knows me, you know I run every day. By “every day” I mean every single day since January 12th, 2012. Yes, I have not missed a single day of running since that date and up through the time of this post. Many people ask what my minimum is and believe it or […]

Virtual Library Activities: 1

Posted on April 16, 2020 by stumpteacher

Like many educators, I am doing my best to adjust to working remotely. To be 100% clear, I don’t like it. I miss interacting with the kids. Nothing I am doing from home will ever replace or come close to replicating what I was able to while in my school library. I, like so many […]

eLearning: I’ve Got Questions

Posted on March 23, 2020 by stumpteacher

eLearning is a hot topic these days as teachers around the country are scrambling to help kids learn from home. I saw someone make the analogy to the astronauts on Apollo 13 trying to make do with whatever they could find laying around the space shuttle during their crisis in space. Much the same, teachers […]

Making Libraries Relevant

Posted on October 13, 2019 by stumpteacher

This past summer I took part in a writing journey, unlike anything I had done before. I was joined by ten other educators with the sole purpose of writing a book for educators. Each one of us brought our unique teaching experiences and perspectives while focusing on the idea of overcoming challenges in schools. The […]

The Forgotten Ones

Posted on September 4, 2019 by stumpteacher

I was recently thinking back to something that happened in my classroom a few years back. It was one of those days that still sticks with me years later. We are working on public speaking, which can be very difficult for some students…and adults. I model and help them along the way as best I […]

I Used to Think

Posted on August 11, 2019 by stumpteacher

I used to think bad teachers needed to be fired. Now I realize bad teaching largely exists because of a lack of exposure to good teaching. I used to think being “color blind” was a good thing and helped me in working with my students of color. Now I realize I can’t be blind to […]

Kids Should Read

Posted on July 29, 2019July 29, 2019 by stumpteacher

I work in a predominantly white school with what most people would consider high achieving students. Our free and reduced lunch number is small and most people would consider our community a stereotypical suburb. With this comes many assumptions about the kind of people and specifically the types of kids who live in our area […]

What Gets You to the Finish Line?

Posted on July 17, 2019 by stumpteacher

These past few days I have been in Boston and as many can assume, I have enjoyed running around this beautiful and historic city. So many spots caused me to stop and take in a sight, but it was a billboard I came across that has been rattling around in my head. It was a […]

Books for Teachers to Read

Posted on July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 by stumpteacher

As many of us teachers drive our kid’s camp carpool, sleep in, read books, and recharge our teaching batteries over summer, administrators and PD directors are planning the new school year which is right around the corner. I know many of us don’t want to think about the fall just yet, but it will be […]

Thoughts From the Run

Posted on June 21, 2019 by stumpteacher

On January 1st, 2012 I took on a challenge to run at least one mile every day for a whole year. On January 9th, 2012 I ended my streak due to an injury. I took two days off and started back up on January 12th, 2012 and have not missed a day since. My run […]