I think schools should seriously consider the tradition of Spring Cleaning and the first thing to go…standardized test. For students young and old, Spring isn’t about New Birth or Hope, rather it is filled with the drudgery of Spring Testing. The windows are shut to keep the bird songs out so that students can concentrate …
I do understand that student-centered education is radical at this point in our educational history: Rethinking Schools has been pressing for radical reform of public education and for student-centered, social justice education since we began 25 years ago. But with debate about education policy now sharply politicized and polarized, there are added reasons to look …
Michael Smith has it right: They’ve seen this same type of thing happen time and again in education. This too shall pass. They are the ones leading the real charge. They are the ones mumbling and looking at their watches during professional development. They gather in the hallways (often during class time) and point out what’s …
Anti-bullying programs have long been a part of schools, but recently there has been a push for these programs The documentary Bully opens in theaters Thursday, and the heated controversy over the appropriate rating for the film has frustrated many schools hoping to use it as a teaching tool. Administrators have struggled to find effective ways to …
Conflict isn’t a bad thing, it’s a GREAT thing. Those who avoid conflict just create more and more conflict. Conflict avoidant people drive everybody around them crazy! Or as my professor would say, “Lean into the tension!” Change is how our muscles grow and how a community that is slowing caving in on itself is …
This teacher wasn’t the first to think that taking things apart and putting them back together might be the perfect way to keep students engage and to help them learn. John Dewey started his first school with the idea that “learning by doing” is really the only way that students take learning with them and …
There’s a limit. There’s a line. There’s an end. As teachers get less and less pay and less and less benefits, then inevitably they will start to seek out different positions and opportunities that do offer health benefits and a sense of security that they thought the public school system guaranteed. When that happens, there will …
Education isn’t about students anymore, it’s about money: Relentless fund-raising, be it for the annual fund, the spring benefit or the latest capital campaign, is as much a feature of private schools as small classes and diverse offerings. But with schools hitting the upper limits of what they can charge for tuition, consultants, parents and …
I am working with a student who is trying to get his GED because he has been told that is what he needs to get a good job and to succeed. What do I say? I am working with a student who is in the middle of standardized tests and has extreme test anxiety because …
When you buy into a system that you think is going to guarantee a new chance and a new opportunity and it doesn’t deliver, what happens next? This week, a judge dismissed a lawsuit against New York Law School filed by some of its own recent graduates. They claimed the school’s marketing misled them about …
