It’s often the eclectic activities teachers do, how they determine the best teaching practices for individuals and groups of students, that help students learn. One of the problems with the Science of Reading is that those who support a narrow often biased focus on instruction, may ignore or cast aside meaningful resources that have helped […]
Acceleration: The Meaning Behind the Buzzword
Acceleration is the new pandemic buzzword brought to you by pro-privatization school reformers. Students may have missed some in-person schooling, even though most learned remotely or in person. Still, the frenzy surrounding learning loss is mounting. The pandemic has given rise to a new way to reframe the old learning gap talk, with new terminology, […]
Stealing Vocational Dreams: Pushing Career Education Too Soon
If you have a middle school student, chances are the school they’re attending is already discussing career options. While there’s always been a place at this age for discussing a child’s hopes and dreams for the future, the push to make career-ready children is creating a lot of anxiety among parents. Much of this involves […]
Calling Nurturing Men to the Teaching Profession
Happy Father’s Day! I am proud to know many nurturing fathers who are also teachers and who fight for public education. I have also known men who are not fathers, but who are marvelous teachers, who view their students like their own children. Men are needed to teach in this country. There’s supposedly a teacher […]
The Summer Reading Rigor Rebellion
If middle school students require summer reading assignments to coax them to read, shouldn’t we be looking at what went wrong with reading instruction in elementary school? By the time a student reaches middle school, shouldn’t they like to read? Yesterday I noticed some of these summer reading assignments posted online. Reading rigor is found […]
Robin Williams and Lessons to Be Learned About Kids with Mental Illness in Public Schools
I have been reminded that Robin Williams died of a particularly severe neurological disease called Lewy Body Dementia. This is not a psychiatric disorder, so it is incorrect to associate Williams to mental illness. Unfortunately, this is an older post and the title is stuck. Still, the information about schools and mental illness I hope […]
What President Obama Got Right—Warning—It’s Wild and There Was No Drill!
OK. You don’t like Race to the Top or the corporate education agenda that all presidents subscribe to. Me neither. Maybe you don’t like a lot of President Obama’s policies and can’t wait for a new guy…or gal! I get it. But how can you not appreciate the way President Obama has been practicing his […]