It is really easy to step over the line. Mistakes come naturally to some of us; we can be forgiven if we ask, by those who believe our intentions are good and our regret sincere. Those of us in the public eye know our mistakes will be noticed. Whether we can put them behind us is the question. We've obviously been watching the presidential campaign unfold over the last year. A thought about apologies and sincerity has been simmering within us. Facts have been contorted. Errors have…

UCLA Center - Mental Health in Schools

Concerns: >Enhancing understanding of what’s causing the violence >Providing support for emotional reactions to violence >Planning ways to minimize violence at school and in a community

In recent months, the news has been inundated with increasingly frequent reports and pictures of acts of violence (terrorist attacks, mass shootings, violence by and to police) and with the reactions of victims and…

Often, we even hear organizational leaders boast that buy-in was achieved for one change or another. Buy-in means accepting and maybe it includes agreement. It is a decision of the head after weighing the alternatives and the rationale. Commitment is more emotionally impelled. It is more of a whole being act from both head and heart to support or join something or someone.  The difference between the two might make all the difference in our success. …

Many people think doing well in visual arts is as cut and dry as to whether or not you have "talent."  Either you have talent, or you don't. When I tell people I teach studio art, most people say "I don't know anything about art" or "I was so bad at art in school." I usually ask them to describe to me what their experience with art was in school, and the answers are almost always the same: "we didn't have art in school" or "we had art once a week for 30 minutes, and…

Forgive me if I repeat an important theme.  Our Education Establishment has got the country so bamboozled, it's a real struggle for anybody to think clearly about why children can't read and don't know very much.

  So let's get some clarity. What to teach is the first fundamental question. Every school needs to decide what…

Is your district STEM-ready? Schools have responded to the popular demand for graduates interested in the expanding careers with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math. They've added courses, clubs, events, and added the acronym 'STEM' with information to their websites.  But what does STEM-ready mean? The answer?  It depends. Read more...

How Rich Teaching Can Help Poor Students

BY MIDDLEWEB · 07/14/2016

At first thought what does college- and career-readiness mean? For some, immediate responses relate to skills and information. What do these students know and what are they able to do to become active, productive members of our society?  Makes sense right?  Well, maybe it's too narrow when we consider the ethical dilemmas arising daily in workplaces and society. Why is it important for public schools to be concerned about graduating students with a developed set of ethics? The…

It is not unusual to find an article or book that resonates and, with the best of intentions, it turns into something that seems good for the school.  Sharing the idea with staff, sending out the article or recommending the book are good professional practices but be wary of the eye rolling and the quiet whispering of "where is he/she taking us now"?   Read…

What a week we have had. The issue of race in America has been in the forefront, in graphic images, stunning in their content and implications. Fear, hate, guns, and killings became an inescapable part of America's summer of 2016. In the days following the fatal shooting of two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, by police, the news media ran the onsite cell phone videos. Suddenly, we were all present in the convenience store parking lot and in the car stopped on the…

Is it a good thing? Should students learn lots of it?

 The reality of our K-12 system is that knowledge is in disrepute, and children don't learn much knowledge anymore.

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 Jesse Watters and Mark Dice conduct interviews in the street, asking people easy questions. A lot of people don't know the answers. It's easy to find videos by these two men on YouTube. (It's also instructive to watch the people…