Video consist of interviews with parents whose children were traumatized by Common Core.

Video is a bit long at 22 minutes but please watch it all. You will understand why a little girl might carve the word STUPID on her arm.

(I think the smart strategy is not to negotiate with Common Core, not to accept any part of it. The people behind CC are relentless, as the…

A “Good” Common Core Lesson?

Diana Senechal

On Education and Other Things…

Ed Week

Eight Qualities of a Great Teacher Mentor

By Kimberly Long

Papers are spilling off the desk. The voicemail light is blinking. Your email inbox is never ending, and little smiley face stickers are somehow stuck in your hair.

We’ve all been there. When it comes to teaching, there are always those days when the final bell rings and you just want to vent about the day,…

Schools continue to struggle to make sense of student engagement and its relationship to student achievement.  Some students come to class ready to learn and remain engaged no matter the lesson. This has always been the case. But far more students become increasingly disengaged with their learning. The response is to intervene with more teaching and learning time, counseling, removing privileges like clubs or sports, and/or the "call home" to engage parents in the solution. With the…

Here is a post on Bullies, Victims and Bystanders in Teen Fiction.  I hope these novels launch meaningful discussions during Bullying Prevention Month.

Happy reading,

Christine…

Are “Just Right” Books Too Easy?

In this article in Reading Today, Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois/Chicago) examines the long-standing belief that children learn best when they’re taught at their current instructional reading level, using materials that are not too hard, not too easy – “just right.” This seems like common sense, as anyone who has watched a frustrated student struggling with a frustration-level book can…

Should Books in School Libraries Be Organized by Reading Level?

In this article in Knowledge Quest, Georgia librarian Susan Grigsby makes the case for not leveling books in school libraries – for example with Lexile numbers, AR levels, or colored dots. “I believe strongly in teaching independence in book selection,” she says, and creates personal bibliographies for her middle-school students by having them fill out surveys of their interests –…

Close Reading with Sets of Related Picture Books

(Originally titled “Close Reading Without Tears”)

In this Educational Leadership article, Nancy Boyles (Southern Connecticut State University) says she is a big fan of close reading because it has the potential to teach students “to delve into a text and uncover one layer of meaning after another, to appreciate as much as possible a book’s multiple themes, diverse points of view, rich…