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Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

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Fake Play and Its Dangerous Alignment to Standards and Data

July 30, 2019 By Nancy Bailey 15 Comments

Where does pretending come in? It relates to what philosophers call “counterfactual” thinking, like Einstein wondering what would happen if a train went at the speed of light. ~Alison Gopnik, “Let the Children Play, It’s Good for Them” Smithsonian Magazine. July 2012. There’s a troubling phenomenon happening in early childhood education. It involves aligning standards […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: behavioral data collection, Children and Learning, Children and Play, data collection on children, guided play, play, play-based learning, standards and alignment

Halloween and The Value of Make-Believe to Reading and Emotional Development

October 30, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 3 Comments

It is not mere childish escapism. There is a political aspect to it – we won’t try to change this world unless we are able to imagine another reality. One could say all change starts with fantasy. ~Cornelia Funke, German author of children’s fiction. Here comes Halloween! Parents and teachers sometimes dread Halloween, the candy […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Celebrating Halloween, Children and Halloween, Dress-Up, Halloween, Halloween Books, Halloween Stories, play, Reading and Halloween, schools, Social Skills and Halloween

The Ridiculous Ways Adults Ruin Recess

July 8, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 15 Comments

Recess for children is such a simple concept that some adults don’t know how to deal with it. Edutopia is talking about a “right way” to do recess in order to “optimize” it. This stems from a report that is supposed to “help” with recess. They want to manipulate how children play and how we […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Edutopia, Micromanaging Recess, play, privatizing recess, public schools, School Recess

The Sad Impact of Corporate School Reform on Students with Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities

January 26, 2018 By Nancy Bailey 7 Comments

We have a lot of troubled kids. As of 2016, approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life. For children aged 8–15, the estimate is 13%. HERE. Schools should be on the front line to assist children and adolescents with mental health difficulties. But […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Adolescents, Art, Betsy DeVos, Children, Data collecting, eliminating special education services, emotional disabilities, high-stakes testing, inclusion, mental health, music, no excuses, One-size-fits-all, play, recess, Rewards, School Choice, Social Emotional Learning, Teach for America, teachers, teens

Recess Isn’t P.E.: State Legislatures Reframe the Meaning of a Child’s Freedom

November 23, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 1 Comment

”I’d like to sit on the grass,” she confided in a whisper of angelic conspiracy, ” and look for ladybugs.” But there is no time for such lollygagging. The Atlanta public schools, like many districts across the country, have eliminated recess in elementary schools as a waste of time that would be better spent on […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Betsy DeVos, Elementary Schools, free play, P.E. Physical education, play, Privatization of recess, public schools, recess, State Legislatures

Are Children Getting Real Recess?

October 4, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 11 Comments

Children have been in school for awhile. How much recess are they getting? Is their school day overly organized? Are they getting pretend recess–physical education, or some canned program from a digital device? How many principals are tricking parents into thinking their children are getting real recess? Even preschool parents need to ask this question. […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Brain Breaks, Go Noodle. Leap Bands, play, Playworks, recess, School Privatization, shape up America, Technology, what is not recess, What's not play

DeVos and False Claims of Failed Schools: How School Reform Hurts Children

March 1, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 4 Comments

The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now. —David […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Betsy DeVos, child development, curriculum, early childhood education, False Claims About Public Schools, play, School Privatization, Technology

Finland’s School Reforms are Troubling: 4 Reasons Why

February 20, 2017 By Nancy Bailey 10 Comments

Finland’s new curriculum means that schoolchildren will no longer need to sit down quietly in classrooms, since they will instead be able to choose where and how they study. In future there will not necessarily be any traditional enclosed classrooms. —“The Truth About Finnish Schools” This is Finland Finland’s schools have been admired for years. […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Cross-disciplines, early childhood education, Finland's Schools, HundrED, Literacy, play, Playful Learning Center, school reform, Technology

Where Art Thou Recess? CASEL’s Social-Emotional Omission

August 31, 2016 By Nancy Bailey 4 Comments

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is creating behavioral standards for preschool through high school across the country. Social and emotional learning (SEL) is both trendy, and controversial, and is being reported a lot in education news. As I have written before, I am suspect of behavioral standards for children, but some […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: American Academy of Pediatrics, Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), Evidenced-Based, play, recess, Unstructured Play

New Kindergarten Testing: Sorry, It’s Not Really Play

October 9, 2014 By Nancy Bailey 1 Comment

Early childhood officials at the U.S. Department of Education, some who should know better, have apparently concluded (as described in this Ed Week article), that they were making little kids do things too over-the-top to be early childhood ready—like giving four-year-olds basic sight word spelling tests and getting them to count to 20 in their […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: assessment, kindergarten, play, testing

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