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Helping students find purpose.
2009-08-13 14:49:00
In his article, “The Moral North Star,” William Damon urges educators to help students connect what they do in school to their lives. All of us in education like to believe that we can help students find out what they are great at! It’s a phrase I’ve used at various Freshman Orientations and other occasions a number of times to encourage students to get involved, try everything, and explore all of their potential talents.In order for students to connect with school, with classes, with a team, or with something larger then themselves, they must become aware that they make a difference. “My actions matter” must be a thought that is real to students according to Damon. That means that educators have to help students discover a way to “contribute something of value through an engaging activity” that draws on academic, athletic, or artistic skills. In this time of accountability through standardized testing, Damon warns us not to forget that our purpose is to get “stude...
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It is amazing how much you can learn...
2009-08-02 22:47:00
Anna Quindlen, in her graduation speech turned book, A Short Guide to a Happy Life, writes, “It is amazing how much you can learn in just one year.” Her quote is great advice for learners of all ages. Maintaining openness for discovery from each experience and challenge faced, promotes continuous learning. And, as educators, it is essential to model the idea of continuous learning. Any classroom teacher knows how much is learned just from interactions and experiences with students over the course of a year!To Quindlen’s thought I would add the following: It is amazing how much you can learn from a great teacher in just one year. Embodying what we believe to be true as educators, this statement reminds us what an awesome responsibility we have! Every day in every classroom of the Bolton Public Schools, we are shaping a generation of learners. The community of Bolton is fortunate to have a dedicated group of adults who come to together each year and provide an education with a f...
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Improving schools is a shared responsibility!
2009-07-24 20:47:00
Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Richard Elmore is a highly a highly respected author and visionary for educational improvement. Elmore believes that lasting improvement in schools is a result of “distributed leadership.” In School Reform from the Inside Out, Elmore redefines the role of leaders to be “primarily about enhancing the skills and knowledge of people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around those skills and knowledge, holding the various pieces of the organization together in a productive relationship with each other, and holding individuals accountable for their contributions to the collective accounts.” Elmore describes five foundational principles for a model of successful distributed leadership: 1. All leaders, regardless of role, should be working at the improvement of instructional practice and performance, rather than working to shield their institutions from outside interference.2. All educat...
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The debate continues: Homework is essential – that is, if it’s well-de
2009-05-17 19:17:00
ASCD’s Dina Strasser, in her blog, The Line, also available at: http://ascd.typepad.com/blog, tackles the homework question by referring to Robert Marzano.Based on Marzano’s work, Art & Science of Teaching, Strasser indicates that,“It is essential for students to not merely be exposed to new knowledge, but actively and authentically work with the knowledge… When teaching procedural skills (how to accomplish something step by step), you also need to allow students to practice those skills. This practice should be frequent and simple at first, giving way to more complex activities. Importantly, students should reflect consistently on their own use of the procedures and come to an understanding that works for them individually: changing, adding, or deleting steps as necessary. When teaching declarative knowledge (concepts or ideas), you need to create activities that allow students to review and revise. By making active corrections, connections, and reflections, students in...
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How did you celebrate Mother’s Day? Did you go to a Swine Flu party, com
2009-05-10 14:14:00
In the category of “signs of the time”:1. The CDC is not only concerned about the outbreak of the swine flu, they are concerned about the sudden outbreak of “swine flu” parties. It seems that several moms have decided it is best to expose their children to the current mild (?) case of swine flu, allowing little Johnny to build up immunity now. Later this year when a more virulent form of the virus surfaces (?), their child will be protected. Maybe the children need protection from mom! Imagine the Mother’s Day card: Thank you mom for exposing me to the virus! I can tell you care!By the way, the CDC actually has a recommendation about swine flu parties on their website (www.cdc.gov)."Swine flu parties" are gatherings during which people have close contact with a person who has novel H1N1 flu in order to become infected with the virus. The intent of these parties is to become infected with what for many people has been a mild disease, in the hope of having natural immunity t...
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National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-8, 2009
2009-05-03 19:35:00
After decades of school improvement efforts centered on restructuring, curriculum standards, accountability, and testing, influential voices in school reform – President Barack Obama, the philanthropist Bill Gates, and national business leaders among them – have reached a novel consensus: The classroom teacher is crucial to learning. Policy elites, it would seem, have finally caught up with folk wisdom of parents and students. (Larry Cuban in EdWeek , 4/29/09)What a nice thought during the week of appreciation for all of our teachers!“Crucial” is really the key word! On a daily basis schools are asking teachers to develop common formative assessments, look at classroom data in teams, improve classroom results in every area, differentiate instruction for the success of all learners, respond and intervene in a systematic way when students in their classroom are not learning, master a plethora of instructional strategies, mentor students, coach students, parent students, and hol...
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Columbine. It must be read. It must be addressed.
2009-04-27 13:09:00
Dave Cullen’s new book is a must for every student, parent, teacher, and school official. It’s a book about real people in a real life situation. It’s scary how evil, how innocent, how lost, and how ordinary the various characters are and how common the situations are to our own schools and communities. The student killers were organized, methodical, and diabolical – and their families, fellow students, school, and community had no reason to notice the clues. I spent ten years covering Columbine , and was struck by how complex and consuming it was. So many fascinating people, such rich stories, all knotted together.I was compelled by two questions: what drove these killers, and what did they do to this town? That's what I set out to tell.From Dave Cullen
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How to teach Reasoning, Resilience, and Responsibility
2009-04-14 14:14:00
Advice from Robert Sternberg (Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University) in his article, “Excellence for All” in Educational Leadership, V.66, No.2:1. Emphasize excellence for all – not just those at the top, bottom, or middle of the distribution – and recognize diverse forms of excellence.2. Provide all students with opportunities to learn through multiple intelligences.3. Value subject matter not only as important in its own right but also as a vehicle for teaching students to think creatively.4. Value creative thinking applied to a knowledge base, recognizing that knowledge forms the backbone for creativity.5. Teach students to apply their learning to practical, real-world problems.6. Promote students’ dialogical thinking ­– the ability to understand things from multiple viewpoints and to appreciate diversity.7. Promote students’ dialectical thinking – the understanding that what is “true” now may not be true in the future and may not have ...
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The danger of “energy drinks.” Read the label for ingredients!
2009-04-06 02:12:00
It’s become very common to see students walking the halls of high school at 7:30 AM holding a can of Red Bull, Monster Energy drink, or a can from a whole assortment of unregulated drinks on the market, but parents and students should be warned that it may not be the ideal breakfast!Teenagers are rapidly becoming the top consumers of energy drinks. Over 500 new brands were launched this year, giving teens a wide variety of styles, flavors and sizes to choose from. Although commonly marketed like sports drinks, which replenish some important nutrients lost during vigorous exercise, energy drinks have little proven nutritional value. Furthermore, the potential side effects should lead parents to give energy drinks a second thought.Caffeine is the primary “boost” ingredient in energy drinks and potentially the most dangerous element. The drinks can also include sugar, taurine, ginseng, and other stimulants, such as ephedrine. Recently, health professionals have become concerned w...
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Isn’t it already tough enough keeping cell phones out of schools?
2009-03-26 21:44:00
Cellular News (www.cellular-news.com/story/36648.php) recently reported that curing teenage depression may be as simple as letting teenagers keep and use their cell phones. Having a cell phone glued to your ears at all hours of the day and night, at school or with friends, seems to be therapeutic because it is claimed that students communicate more effectively using the cell phone.Perhaps these researchers are of the philosophy that taking cell phones away from students is like taking candy from a baby.In the Cellular News story, “Using Mobile Phones to Monitor Teenage Mental Health,” a study is described in which one’s mental health status is tracked using a cell phone. But the “key” finding is that mental health problems can be treated by cell phones, as the process of monitoring one’s mental health provides an opportunity to express feelings via cell phones – feelings that seem difficult to express verbally. (Perhaps this is because verbal communication is passé in...
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“Singing” the praise of music in education.
2009-03-20 18:44:00
Science Daily (March 16, 2009), “sings” the praise of music education in improving reading skills. The premise is not new. According to the article, “Children exposed to a multi-year program of music involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music .”Simply put, an organized music education program will enhance reading skills in students.According to authors Joseph M. Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University, USA, data from this study will help to clarify the role of music study on cognition and shed light on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy.Studying children in two U.S. elementary schools, one of which routinely trained children in music and one that did not, Piro and Ortiz aimed to investigate the hypothe...
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The argument is not content over skills…it’s all about the mind!
2009-03-14 23:39:00
There was a great debate recently that played out in the press over the publicity that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) has been receiving. In a recent article in Ed Week (www.edweek.org), “Backers of ‘21st Century Skills’ Take Flak” by Stephen Sawchuk, the debate over whether skills acquisition shuts out important content (or stressing content reduces mastery of necessary skills for employment and life success) moves to the forefront.But perhaps both sides should stop for a minute and listen to the always wise Howard Gardner. In an article in The School Administrator (February 2009), Gardner takes the focus of the instructional strategies and places the emphasis on the student. Gardner’s focus is on the mind of the student and the kind of minds that educators should “cultivate” for the future. He has five suggestions, which are reproduced below from the article:• The disciplined mind – By this, Gardner means learning what it mean...
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When will we stop accepting senseless losses?
2009-03-08 22:46:00
Excerpts from WFSB in Connecticut –A man driving drunk and going the wrong way with his lights off early Saturday crashed head-on into a van, killing a college student who was headed to Africa on a spring break medical aid mission, police said.The wrong-way driver, Daniel Musser, slammed into the van around 3:45 a.m. while it was headed south on Interstate 395 in Montville, about 45 miles southeast of Hartford, police said.The vehicle was traveling south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 395 in Montville when it hit the students' van, causing the van to flip. The van was carrying eight Connecticut College students.Elizabeth Durante, a 20-year-old junior and a trained emergency medical technician from West Islip, N.Y., was partially thrown from the van and died at the scene. She had planned to one day become a doctor."The Connecticut College community suffered a heartbreaking loss this morning," the school responded in a statement.The other seven passengers were taken to area ...
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There’s many ways to save money – even if it’s not educationally wise
2009-02-26 21:09:00
Dave Weber of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida public schools have the answer to tight budgets.Make the school week four days long instead of five. What’s an extra 40-45 days of school worth?School boards have been mumbling for months that a four-day school week would save a bundle on utility bills, diesel fuel for buses and certain other expenses, if only state law would permit it. Now some legislators are pushing just such a proposal."School boards and superintendents all around the state have been asking for this flexibility," said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Daytona Beach, a veteran lawmaker who has filed a bill to make the change during the upcoming legislative session.Under her plan, schools no longer would be required to be open 180 days a year, as long as they put in the same number of hours. The common interpretation of the plan would be to have four longer school days.School-district officials aren't eager to go to a shorter week, which they acknowledge could be detrim...
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Here is the one thing for which duct tape cannot be used!
2009-02-16 23:57:00
According to Meranda Watling of the Indianapolis Star (www.indystar.com), a teacher from the Tippecanoe School District is in a very “sticky” situation.Watling reports that the “Tippecanoe Schools has dismissed a veteran teacher who reportedly duct-taped a student's mouth shut.”OK…bad judgment noted there.“In a letter to the School Board dated Dec. 19, Superintendent Scott Hanback recommended ending Battle Ground Middle School teacher Pamela Dahnke's contract. The School Board voted Wednesday to cancel her contract.”It seems that the “Battle Ground” for taped mouths centers right at this appropriately named school!“Dahnke, an 18-year veteran of Tippecanoe County schools and a former high school softball coach, taught eighth-grade health and nutrition.”Perhaps the health curriculum taught by the teacher did not cover the negative self esteem adolescents can experience when demoralized and embarrassed by adult role models in their life.“Dahnke has been on pai...
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High Standards?
2009-02-06 23:16:00
Recently former Senator Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services due to tax problems and close connections with the health care industry.Nancy Killerfer, as a result of a tax dispute several years old, withdrew as nominee as the first chief performance officer of the federal government.· These are government officials who expect the highest performance standards from schools as demanded in NCLB legislation?According the Washington Post:“Peanut Corp. of America found salmonella in its peanuts 12 times in 2007 and 2008, but the company sold them anyway, sometimes after getting a negative test result from a different laboratory.”Thirty-two truckloads of peanuts and peanut butter were sold to the government for “a free lunch program for poor children… Schools in California, Minnesota and Idaho received the suspected peanut products from January to November.”Eight people have died and 575 people have been sickened by the salmonella outbrea...
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The “Millennials” are looking for mentors.
2009-02-01 20:25:00
The students in our schools today, born between 1980 and 2000, are considered part of the “Millennial” generation. According to www.generationsatwork.com they have been brought up on believing the following:· Be smart—you are special. They’ve been catered to since they were tiny. Think Nickelodeon, Baby Gap, and Sports Illustrated for Kids.· Leave no one behind. They were taught to be inclusive and tolerant of other races, religions, and sexual orientations.· Connect 24/7. They learned to be interdependent—on family, friends, and teachers. More Millennials say they can live without the television than the computer. Many prefer chatting on line to talking on the phone.· Achieve now! Some parents hired private agents to line up the right college; others got started choosing the right pre-school while the child was still in the womb.· Serve your community. Fifty percent of high school students reported volunteering in their communities, many of their high schools requiri...
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Tear down the walls and let the world in – or the students out!
2009-01-24 22:08:00
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.21stcenturyskills.org) is encouraging schools to break out beyond the walls of the school and open themselves to our increasingly accessible world through technology, through communication, and through experience.…in today’s interconnected and technology-driven world, a learning environment can be virtual, online and remote. In addition, physical learning structures must be designed to suit the immediate and future requirements of a community and should enable collaboration, interaction and information sharing among community members.While the relationship of physical spaces and technological systems to learning continues to be ever important, even more important is how – and whether – these environments support the positive human relationships that matter most to learning, according to the report. The most essential element of all learning environments has always been the ‘people network’ – the community of students, educat...
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Does NCLB lead students down the road of depression?
2009-01-19 18:30:00
There is new research that links success in first grade with a well-adjusted future. Science Daily (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/09 0108111425.htm), reported on a new study by the University of Missouri that found links “among students’ weak academic performance in the first grades, self-perceptions in the sixth grade, and depression symptoms in the seventh grade.” “We found that students in the first grade who struggled academically with core subjects, including reading and math, later displayed negative self-perceptions and symptoms of depression in sixth and seventh grade, respectively,” said Keith Herman, associate professor of education, school and counseling psychology in the MU College of Education. “Often, children with poor academic skills believe they have less influence on important outcomes in their life. Poor academic skills can influence how children view themselves as students and as social beings.”…Herman found that students who struggled acad...
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Ideas for the inaugural speech of the century!
2009-01-12 03:26:00
According to Calvin Woodward and Matt Ford of the Associated Press, the pressure is on Barack Obama to deliver an inaugural speech that will go down in history.The pressure's on for Barack Obama, orator. History wants something for the ages in his January 20 inaugural speech. Not just pretty words that melt like gumdrops but something that will settle in the nation's soul and be worth making schoolchildren memorize 100 years from now.Americans want something for the dispiriting times they live in. They have their first extraordinary speaker in decades taking the oath of office. They know how good he's been. Time for great.How tall is the order?"The great task of Barack Obama is to be a John F. Kennedy or to be a Ronald Reagan — truly inspire the American people and in a few succinct, memorable lines, lay out for the country your new vision for America," says American University political historian Allan J. Lichtman.Perhaps the best thing that Barack could do is borrow our schoo...
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Advice to President Obama on the “bailout” and education
2009-01-03 16:10:00
Everyone acknowledges the great challenges of the times as Obama assembles and prepares his administration to tackle “change.” While bread lines may have been an enduring symbol of the Great Depression, many of us fear that “bailout” lines will become the symbol of this economic era in history. The “dough” being dispersed in 2009 is a little more costly and questionable as to its use than the dough of the 1930’s.All of us in the field of education can only hope that with all the challenges ahead the administration acknowledges the concerns of the public education system during the first 100 days of office. By the time $1 trillion has been dispersed to various corporations, will the children of America have received their fair share of attention as a result of several campaign pledges?According to the website, www.barackobama.com/issues/education/, the following was promised:Barack Obama will reform No Child Left Behind:Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be for...
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New Year’s Resolutions for Teachers
2008-12-20 00:14:00
Every year this list reappears, but the resolutions just do not seem to go out of style! Choose one as a resolution and make 2009 your best year of teaching!1. Be committed to high achievement for every student in your classes.2. Use a variety of approaches and resources to meet the needs of every student in your classes.3. Engage each student in higher-order thinking and connect your curriculum to his or her life in and out of school.4. Mentor a student who needs a positive adult connection.5. Take charge of your own professional development and continuously work to improve and reflect upon your practices.6. Collaborate with at least one other colleague and share your ideas about teaching and learning.7. Increase your communication with students and parents.8. Take a risk and try something in the classroom that you have always dreamed of trying.9. Allow technology to have a major impact on your teaching and student learning in at least one unit of study.10. Take the time to support...
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Tomorrow’s future is in (and needs to stay in) our schools today!
2008-12-12 19:25:00
One of the most forward thinking websites (and print magazines) is www.edutopia.org. It’s worth checking out for a number of reasons. Articles are timely and thought-provoking and the writers’ futuristic outlooks make for great debate.Two back-to-back articles in their Dec08/Jan09 issue are perfect bookends of the educational concerns of the time. The first, “Jobs of Tomorrow” by Amy Zuckerman, takes a forward look at jobs of the future and the skills they require of our most aggressive and successful students. The other, by Roberta Furger, “Stay ing Power: How to End the Dropout Crisis” looks at the real problem of students leaving school without employment skills in a time when creativity and dexterity are crucial in a very competitive work environment.Here are two “jobs of tomorrow” envisioned by Zuckerman:1. Personal Virtual-Presence Agent. Description: Creating and shaping a client’s global online image by acting on behalf of the client to create multimedia lif...
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Schools must take the lead in producing ethical citizens!
2008-12-08 00:35:00
In an Associated Press article by David Crary, “Students lie, cheat, steal, but say they’re good,” statistics on the behavior of high school students should be enough to cause every school to take action. According to Crary:In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards.Educators reacting to the findings questioned any suggestion that today’s young people are less honest than previous generations, but several agreed that intensified pressures are prompting many students to cut corners.“The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically,” said Mel Riddle of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “They have opportunities their predecessors didn’t have (to cheat). The temptation is greater.”The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics ins...
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Bailout our children, not the CEOs!
2008-11-26 13:59:00
I am skeptical of the bailout. Every day the amount changes, but the ever growing $700 billion to $1 trillion in federal rescue funds have been handed out thus far as follows:$250 billion is going to financial institutions according to http://money.cnn.com.$150 billion is going to AIG according to www.reuters.com.$140 billion is going to General Electric according to www.seekingalpha.com$25 billion is going to American automakers according to www.msnbc.msn.com.The justification surrounding the bailout seems to be that investing like this, on the part of our country, is a commitment to the future. Making a commitment to the future is clearly a priority of our lawmakers as they ponder who to bailout next.So, when will the public schools get their bailout?As schools and towns around the country begin to budget for next year, there will be no rescue plan to guarantee the success for the most important aspect of our future: the students in our schools today. They are the true future!The ...
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If you don?t like standardized testing results, just ?invalidate? them!
2008-06-06 22:34:00
According to Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, writer for EdWeek (6/4/08), the state of Georgia is just going to ignore test results for the entire state. They?ve realized that testing should serve schools ? and not the other way around!According to Manzo:Georgia education officials have decided to invalidate results from state social studies tests that a majority of 6th and 7th graders failed. The scores were ?implausibly low,? the officials said.State Superintendent Kathy Cox wrote in a letter to district leaders last month that there didn?t appear to be errors in scoring the tests, which just 20 percent to 30 percent of the state?s 6th and 7th grades passed. Instead, the new statewide curriculum and the assessments in those grades may need to be revised to ?better evaluate the knowledge and skills that represent student achievement in social studies,? she said.Ms. Cox, a former social studies teacher, said that the curriculum is too broad in some areas and may not prepare students for the ...
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I am not even going to comment on this incident of plagiarism in fear that
2008-06-02 02:46:00
TAKEN FROM: ?Plagiarism allegations jolt school? Chicago Tribune WRITTEN BY: James Kimberly, Tribune reporter, May 30, 2008 HIS ORIGINAL IDEAS: Strict policies that put it at the forefront of efforts to weed out plagiarism led a prominent high school to take action Thursday against its top administrator and top student. School District 203's superintendent moved to reassign Naperville Central High School Principal Jim Caudill next school year, while student Steve Su is being asked to return his valedictorian's medal, after each plagiarized portions of speeches they gave during commencement events last week, the district announced Thursday. District 203 students and teachers are required to submit written papers through software designed to identify plagiarized passages, such as the software available from http://www.turnitin.com/. Students caught plagiarizing get a failing grade on the assignment for a first offense, and penalties escalate for subsequent offenses. "It's not done ...
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High Stakes Testing: If it is broke, don?t fix it. Just join in!
2008-05-17 17:59:00
Pennsylvania lawmakers are skeptical.According to Martha Raffaele of the Associated Press: Members of a Senate panel on Wednesday joined a chorus of skeptics who question whether the state should spend millions of dollars on a proposed state graduation testing program for Pennsylvania high school students. Senators who participated in a Senate Education Committee hearing expressed doubts that the tests proposed by the State Board of Education would live up to the promise of ensuring that all graduates would be prepared for college and careers after high school. ?It seems we?re getting test-happy,? said Sen. James Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, the committee?s chairman. The board has proposed creating a battery of 10 final examinations covering math, science, English and social studies. By the time this year?s sixth-graders, the class of 2014, reach high school, they would have to pass six exams to graduate. Schools would be required to provide remedial help to failing students, who would ha...
More About: Testing , Join , High , High Stakes , Stakes

If you want creativity in schools, then demand it!
2008-05-10 14:46:00
Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor of eSchool News in an article ?Creativity is important but neglected,? may be pointing out the obvious: businesses want creative individuals and schools are trying to promote creative individuals. But the pressures and mandates of the current testing craze (being driven in the background by business leaders!) are squelching schools? abilities to promote creativity anywhere in the curriculum. Educators and employers agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, according to a recent report. Yet, the report suggests a disconnect exists between what survey respondents say they believe and how they act. In fact, findings indicate most high schools and employers provide creativity-conducive education and training only on an elective or ?as needed? basis. The report, ?Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce?,? was released in April by the Conference Board and Americans f...
More About: Schools , Students , Testing , Demand

The best predictor of college success??
2008-05-04 01:42:00
According to an article in USA Today by Janet Kornblum and Gregg Toppo, the new section of the SAT exam, the ?controversial? writing portion, is the best indicator of success in college.Forget high school grades, high school GPA, or the difficulty of courses taken in high school. All one must do to predict future success is to look at the score on the 25-minute writing portion of the SAT exam, which was added in March 2005.There is one problem with this claim. The study which determined the predictability factor of the writing portion of the SAT was done by the College Board - the same College Board that creates, administers, and scores the writing exam. According to Kornblum and Toppo?s article, research results (by the College Board) claim that the writing portion of the SAT exam ?is actually a better predictor of grades for freshmen college students than the older, more-established, critical reading and mathematics portions." In fact, Waye Camara, vice president of research for t...
More About: Testing , Success