The importance of the standards movement in education cannot be underestimated. It represents the first time that policy makers from all sectors of public life have agreed upon a set of principles for the future direction of education in this country. Consequently, the only educational agenda that matters is the one related to enhancing teaching […]
Preschool is no longer seen simply as a place where children play and have fun with their age-mates. Concerns about the educational attainment of the country’s children have refocused attention on early childhood settings as places where children also get ready for school. For those concerned with the issues presented by an increasingly diverse student […]
A charter school is a new public school that is created and managed by a group usually consisting of parents, teachers, and/or community leaders. Also, some for-profit businesses run charter schools. Charters receive funding from the state where they are located, and they are free from many of the regulations governing other schools that are […]
Rebecca, a tiny ponytailed second-grader, sits in class at a Westside gradeschool that is among the best in Los Angeles. She is contemplating her personal journal, the latest classroom rage for teaching kids to read. She toils with a pencil, filling a page with her crooked sentences, then proudly hands the work to me, a […]
Writing Child Stories in an ADHD World Have you noticed how your attention span has gotten shorter? Personally, I rarely have the patience to sit through a move in which the plot slowly unfolds. With a few notable exceptions, the plot has to move at a brisk pace. If we, as adults, now demand a […]
Behavior Management Tips General Rules Twelve steps teachers can take at the beginning of the year to promote effective classroom management are: Develop a set of written expectations you can live with and enforce. Be consistent. Be consistent. Be consistent. Be patient with yourself and with your students. Make parents your allies. Call early and […]
Spice Up Child Stories by Using Sound This article presents a parenting tip for using sound, and especially onomatopoeia, with child stories. The benefits are: they make child stories more interesting stories become more interactive making sounds is fun Why Use Sound? As recently as a few centuries ago, stories were primarily oral/aural; they were […]
