Today, 51 percent of all students in U.S. public schools are poor. Our public education system is designed to help students achieve a year of academic growth in a school year. For economically disadvantaged children, that’s a problem.
Read More »
Many of us are familiar with the groundbreaking work done by professors Betty Hart and Todd Risley commonly referred to as the 30 Million Word Gap. Their research followed 42 families for 2 ½ years in order to record the types of interactions that take place in homes while those families raised their children. Focusing on children ages 1-2, they sought to understand the impact of different socia...
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #12 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness. This is a very important article for those of us who are looking to make improvements in our student success in the future. Students walk into classrooms with a built-in motivation to succeed and a built-in deterrent to avoid failure. The younger they are, the more straig...
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #11 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness. One of the ways in which we need to be ready as teachers, especially in the primary grades, is to understand how emotional capabilities are developed. Every year as a kindergarten teacher my wife experiences multiple situations like the following. My wife will do somethin...
Read More »
In case your school has begun cutting back on recess to allow for more teacher-directed student instructional time, I’d like to clarify one additional way in which movement and exercise, which is at the heart of play, actually increase the academic capability of your students.
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #9 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness. I was amused this past year when my wife, a kindergarten teacher, came home and announced they were no longer to have choosing time. Choosing time, for any of you who do not know, is a time when students are free to go to various play areas and engage in free play. Why was...
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #8 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness. If a student feels unsafe, there is an immediate physiological response which changes how their brain works. In an extreme example, if your student was attacked by a vicious dog, their body would be flooded with chemicals called glucocorticoids that increase their heart rat...
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #7 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness. Safety is key to student success. Where I want to start is a little different than you might expect. We will get to the famous freeze, fight, flight response in the next article, but I want to make sure you understand a less obvious, but equally important, function of the ...
Read More »In a previous post (here), I explained that I have been learning about how the brain processes humor. It turns out that it is nearly impossible to discuss the concept of humor without stumbling upon a discussion about sarcasm. For most of my career as an educational leader, speaker, and author I have warned educators about the negative effects of using sarcasm in the classroom. The “lowest for...
Read More »
Teacher readiness series #6 I’m not nearly as concerned about student readiness for school as I am about teacher readiness for students. The building block of helping your students be successful in particular activities begins with understanding where your students are at and looking at the activity through your students’ eyes. To understand where your students are at, please don’t make assu...
Read More »