“I read this morning that the 2018 hurricane season will bring one of the strongest cycles of storms in the last 50 years to the east coast. This caused me to wonder what I should tell my family who live … Continue reading
Bring Your Cell Phones To Class, Please
Cell Phone Use In School – Freedom and Responsibility
A student walks into a high school classroom. A ringtone sounds on her cellphone and she answers as she walks to her desk. Classmates take their seats and a bell rings signally class has started. Should she finish her conversation … Continue reading
When Safe Is Impossible, Safer Is A Better Place To Be
Safety is an illusive perception. When a person believes he is safe from danger, he remains vulnerable to the threat that he cannot conceive. When a person believes he is threatened by danger, while he is more sensitive to all … Continue reading
There is No Teaching License for Mental Health
As much as politicians and media want it to be otherwise, there is no teaching license, not expertise, that certifies teachers in the area of mental health. There is no major or minor in colleges of education for the certification … Continue reading
Look at External Data, But Work to Improve the Internal Data
Baking bread is a matter of following a recipe. I pre-heat my oven stove to 450 degrees and place my Dutch oven on the middle rack. When the oven is heated, I place my properly mixed and raised dough in … Continue reading
Multiple Literacies Required
How literate are you? How literate should an educated person be in order to lead a full contemporary adult life? Literacy, the ability to read and write, is almost universal in the United States today. Although we quibble annually about … Continue reading
Moving the Needles of School Improvement Begins with the Teacher’s Needle
With all good reason we focus school accountability on the improvement of student achievement and accomplishments. The bottom lining in most discussions about education relates to children. School Report Cards measure student academic achievements in reading and math, promotion and … Continue reading
Don’t Be The Biggest Kid In The Classroom
Read, smile and realize “I know that.” That should be the response a teacher has to reading Sarah McKibben’s “Stay Calm and Teach On” article in ASCD’s Education Update. McKibben succinctly describes the practices of several veteran teachers who work … Continue reading
Whose Learning Needle Must Move? Every Child’s Learning Needle
What we say and what we do matters. If we believe that all children can and must learn, say it aloud and often and then cause it to happen. Imagine walking into a school classroom on Monday morning, looking at … Continue reading
Educating Is Moving The Needle
“What am I doing here?” is a good question to ask oneself frequently. The context of this question is your workplace, your career, your job. I surmise that many respond with confidence that “I am doing the work I want … Continue reading