Category Archives: Teaching

Schools designed for learning

This article in Ed Week, called Form Meets Function in Finland’s New Schools, reminded me of a couple of high schools I visited when in North Carolina last year: Monstrosities. Huge. Impersonal. Architecturally and design bereft. Just boxes built next … Continue reading

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Teaching cursive and handwriting

My handwriting is awful. Just awful. I signed some forms at the doctor’s office last week, and the nurse looked at my signature and commented that I “should’ve been a doctor.” I guess the cursive writing instruction I got back … Continue reading

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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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Watching Jaws

We watched Steven Spielberg’s Jaws three times last weekend – once with a group of rowdy 5th graders but the other two times allowed for better viewing, actually stopping and backing up the DVD, to deconstruct and marvel at some … 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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From David Ginsburg: Learning and Leading by Listening

Fellow educational consultant and all-around good guy David Ginsburg has a great blog for teachers at the Education Week Teacher site, and I liked what he had to say about listening in a recent post. And so here is that … Continue reading

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