Category Archives: Parents

Young Adult Literature or The Hunger Games Explained

My college classmate Ann Jacobus writes and writes about Young Adult literature, and I got the OK to re-purpose the below piece that she’d written for my college class’s newsletter. You can find Ann at www.annjacobus.com and www.readerkidz.com. Here goes … Continue reading

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Family Life & Human Development. What we once called Sex Ed.

The past few days, our 5th grader and his classmates have embarked on the district’s Family Life and Human Development unit – what we once called Sex Ed – and it’s provided for rich conversation on the car ride home … Continue reading

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More on transitioning from elementary to middle school

At this post, I re-purposed research that colleagues had done at The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, on the issue of transitioning from elementary to middle school, and I want to return to it. My wife and I … Continue reading

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The value of homework

My son brought home a great assignment a few weeks ago – to identify around the house obtuse and acute angles – and he and I went a step further, taking pictures of the angles we found and emailing some … Continue reading

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Prospective parents visiting classrooms

Jay Mathews had a great post in today’s WaPo, highlighting two schools, one private, another public, and their refusal to let prospective parents visit classrooms. He wrote that, “I suspect many other schools, public and private, have the same knee-jerk … Continue reading

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Teaching character

Back in this post, I wrote about school culture, its importance, and the hard work it takes to make it a genuine and on-going part of the school. Too many schools try to get it through shortcuts, as they “build … Continue reading

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