The Myth of Having Summers Off "So you're a teacher, huh?" says the umpteenth Joe Know-It-All. It's late spring, and I know the tone, and I know what's coming. I don't know what mythical job this guy thinks I have, but I've never had a summer off. 9 Education-Related Summer Tasks I don't know who started this legend of the well-rested teacher who sits around all summer long sippin' sangrias without a thought of prepping for the year before them, but I've never met those teachers -- if they even exist. Bottom line is that every year since entering teaching (I am a second-career teacher, having come from The World Beyond), I have seen some of the busiest summer months of my life. 1. Let's face it, who doesn't need the moola? 2. This summer, many of us are working on developing or revising the grade level mock-Common Core Performance Tasks for our districts. 3. Lessons and units that may have proven to be dusty, clunky, or just downright "meh" get reworked, revised, or dumped altogether. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. It's true.
Art Is Vital ASPEN, Colo. — It has been three years since the spectacular video of Lil Buck dancing to Yo-Yo Ma brought jookin—which draws from hip-hop, ballet, jazz, and modern dance—into mainstream consciousness. Ma would later call Buck a genius; and, he is. According to the theory of multiple intelligences, which posits nine distinct dimensions, Buck is clearly off the charts in intelligences like spatial, musical/rhythmic, and bodily/kinesthetic. The theory was developed in 1983 by Howard Gardner, who is now the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard. Five years after moving to Los Angeles to work the Santa Monica pier, Buck is an artist-in-residence at the Aspen Institute, where he spoke this morning with Gardner at the Aspen Ideas Festival (hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic)—alongside actress Alfre Woodard and dancer Damian Woetzel—about fostering this sort of intelligence through exposure to the arts. Like Buck, jookin was born in Memphis.
The Education System Is Rigged Against Low-Income Students, Even In Kindergarten Effective School Discipline As a general rule, the more school discipline issues that you handle directly and on the spot, the higher your status will be amongst your pupils. Use assertive discipline , raise and lower your status at will, create a positive learning frame and learn to create rapport on a regular basis, and in the long-term, most of the behavior management problems that you encountered at the start of your teaching career will disappear. This is because, in time, the children that you teach will come to know what to expect, both from you and your lessons. You will have established firm boundaries, in terms of school discipline, so that the pupils will have no need to go in search of them. After a few terms or a year or two in a school, your 'reputation' amongst the pupils that you teach will have spread. However, this process is not plain sailing and in all honesty it does not happen for everyone. Are there some people who are unsuited to teaching? What does a good discipline system look like?
How Trauma is Changing Children’s Brains For several years, John Snelgrove began his workweek with a lengthy fax from the local police, listing the home addresses where officers had answered domestic violence calls over the weekend. Snelgrove, head of guidance services for Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools, would check those addresses against the district’s student database. A Sunday night, disrupted by violence, panic, and 911 calls, surely will make it difficult for a child to settle down to learn on Monday morning. “It’s more than one or two children in your class of 28, it could be closer to 30 percent or more,” Snelgrove tells his colleagues. “Be consistent, be kind, focus on connecting with kids,” he urges. The Traumatized Brain Back in the 1990s, Dr. Since then, it’s become clear that the damaging effects of trauma are not saved until adulthood. What neuropsychologists have found is that traumatic experiences actually can alter children’s brains. Calming Colors, Safe Spaces, Mindfulness So what’s an educator to do?
A’s for Everyone: How Grade Inflation Is Wrecking Higher Education A report card of straight A’s might make parents paying a pretty penny for their child’s college education feel a diploma is worth the financial sacrifice. But according to the most comprehensive analysis ever of grade inflation in higher education in the United States, nowadays even the most average students are likely to be given A’s. Although all those A’s might make American students feel—or appear—smart, in the long run, it could make them less employable compared with their legitmately high-achieving peers around the world. “It’s likely that American competitiveness will suffer if we continue to water down undergraduate education,” former Duke University geology professor Stuart Rojstaczer wrote in an email to TakePart about Grade Inflation, the report released Tuesday on his website. RELATED: 5 College Majors With the Lowest Unemployment, and 5 With the Highest Rojstaczer has become known as “Mr. The rise in college grades during the Vietnam War was well documented.
TED Talks for Social Studies Teachers I love TED talks. They’re like the perfect educational appetizer. All of them are quick and easy to digest, they look great and they make you hungry to learn more. I’ve posted about TED talks before. But Angela has. Angela has a sweet blog over at changED that you need to spend some browsing through. Use the list to grow professionally. What happens when 80 10th grade students watch, analyze and reflect upon 640+ TED Talks in pursuit of the answer to the question, “What Matters (To Us)”? The TEDxClassroomProject happens. I’m thinking semester-end student-created TED talks instead of a final. Like this: Like Loading...
Intellectually Gifted Kids And Learning Disabilities Often Go Hand In Hand Mention the terms “intellectual giftedness” and “learning disability” and there is a general understanding of what each term means. However, most people are unaware that in many circumstances the two can go hand in hand. Current US research suggests that 14% of children who are identified as being intellectually gifted may also have a learning disability. This is compared to about 4% of children in the general population. No-one has been able to explain this discrepancy. While children who are intellectually gifted are acknowledged, the fact that some of these students could also have a learning disability is ignored. Identifying a gifted student with disabilities While generally referred to as “GLD” (gifted with a learning disability), these children are also referred to as “twice exceptional” (2e), and “double labeled”. GLD children are often hard to identify. Difficulties arise with identifying these children as they generally fall into three categories: What needs to be done?
The Course Outline of Record: A Curriculum Reference Guide | ASCCC Curriculum is at the core of any educational endeavor, and the course outline of record plays a central role both internal and external to the California Community College System. This update to the original Academic Senate paper Components of a Model Course Outline of Record also incorporates material from the previously published Academic Senate papers Stylistic Considerations in Writing Course Outlines of Record and Good Practices for Course Approvals. In spite of the fact that internal and external standards for courses regularly evolve, this paper offers the curriculum developer a clear framework for the writing of a course outline of record. The paper begins with a broad overview of the development process and then moves to an element by element explanation of the course outline of record itself. For each element, stylistic and practical considerations are provided along with the appropriate citations where such inclusion helps to clarify the regulatory intent to ensure quality.
Why teachers should stop trying to hide their emotions in school (iStock) There is a great deal of talk about how schools need to address the social and emotional needs of students, and that is indisputably true. But this post isn’t about that. It’s about teachers, and the hidden emotional toll that their job takes on them. In this unusual post, Ruben Brosbe, a third-grade teacher in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of New York City, writes about the difficulty teachers have in talking about their feelings about their job — and how gender plays a role in that dynamic. Brosbe likes hands-on learning and talking about social justice, and he says that he loves the different challenges that every day brings nin his class. By Ruben Brosbe I was recently called into a meeting unexpectedly and given the news that one of my students would probably not be returning to school this year. After discussing logistics such as how to mark her attendance and what to tell her classmates, I was dismissed. [Teacher: ‘Why are they in my class?’
How Higher Education in the US Was Destroyed in 5 Basic Steps Photo Credit: Steven Frame via Shutterstock.com A few years back, Paul E. Lingenfelter began his report on the defunding of public education by saying, “In 1920 H.G. In the last few years, conversations have been growing like gathering storm clouds about the ways in which our universities are failing. To explain my perspective here, I need to go back in time. I suspect that, given the opportunity, those groups would have liked nothing more than to shut down the universities. So: here is the recipe for killing universities, and you tell me if what I’m describing isn’t exactly what is at the root of all the problems of our country’s system of higher education. Step I: Defund public higher education. Anna Victoria, writing in Pluck Magazine, discusses this issue in a review of Christopher Newfield’s book, Unmaking the Public University: “In 1971, Lewis Powell (before assuming his post as a Supreme Court Justice) authored a memo, now known as the Powell Memorandum, and sent it to the U.S.
The Hamlin School Embraces No Rescue Policy for Parents to Encourage Resilience in Children “In an effort to promote independence and responsibility, the school encourages a policy based on the premise that choices have natural consequences — both positive and negative. Students often learn best when they learn from their mistakes. If a student forgets an item at home or fails to complete an assignment, for example, parents are asked not to bring items to school. If a parent does bring an item for the student, it will be the teacher’s discretion whether or not to allow the student to have it. Raising our children can often feel like groping in the dark, but some simple truths are as clear as the light of a California day: Children forget. Moreover, as the mother of sons and the head of a school for girls, I have a strong sense that we tend to rush in and save our girls far more quickly than our boys, thereby reinforcing the stereotypical image of the helpless girl who is unable to use her wits and grit to save herself. Detach your identity from your child’s. Wanda M.