Teachers and their leaders all, as human beings, naturally repeat behaviors and decisions out of habit. There is a comfort in doing the same thing over and over, a security and assurance that comes with habit. A successful implementation of a new student information system, or schedule, for example, offers feedback to the one leading the change that the method "worked." A successful lesson in a classroom, one that yielded high scores for the students, offers feedback to the teacher…

Beware of ‘Educational Snake-Oil Salespersons’: Ask Them to Provide Evidence…

Recently, we were invited to address a group of educators in central New York. It was mid-summer. Eighteen school districts were represented.  About 200 teacher, school and district leaders were attending the Second Annual Collaborative Educators Summit hosted by the East Syracuse Minoa Central School District and their business and higher ed partners. These educators had come together to both learn and share how they are changing the way teaching and learning is…

A challenge for schools is the divide that exists between the culture within our schools and the culture that exists outside of our schools.  What we teach and model is not what they see and experience when students walk out of our doors. Schools face the challenge of helping children learn and become, hopefully, empathetic, compassionate, and courageous, and contributing adults. Schools, in preparing students for work and life in this century, fight gender stereotypes and all other…

Do We Really Have High Expectations for All?

BY MIDDLEWEB · 07/28/2015

On my way in to the John A. Coleman School in Yonkers, NY, I noticed a small framed statement of mission hanging on the wall.  Very unobtrusive, it read "In the tradition of Elizabeth Seton, we cherish all children and believe in the healing power of loving relationships..."  That simple statement summed up clearly what I saw over the next few hours, and was moved to share in this piece.  It was so unlike the "Mission and Vision" statements I have seen in…

Any number of things can cause an educator to experience stress: challenged students, discipline, time pressures and workload, coping with change, being evaluated by everyone, self-esteem and status, everyday issues of administration and management, role conflict and ambiguity and often poor working conditions (Myers & Berkowicz).  A Google search reveals…

The morning newscasters around the world were reporting that a piece of an airplane wing has washed ashore on Reunion Island, it was big news, as it might be the first piece of an airliner that disappeared 15 months ago. One foreign correspondent reported that there had been "162 souls on board." The phrase caught us. It is not how an American would likely characterize the human lives that might be lost. Juxtapose that to a recent Time Magazine article "A jailbreak shows…

That title is the central conflict that has been playing out over the last hundred years.

 Academically successful schools tend to do what has generally been termed "traditional education." 

Progressive schools, on the other hand, do what is generally termed social engineering. Such schools are not primarily concerned with knowledge. They are focused on creating new kinds of children and preparing them to live in a Brave New World.

 As this trend…

In the last few years, an attempt to extinguish bullying has taken center stage.  Few disagree with the premise that bullying is harmful and must not be accepted in our schools.  But, a narrow focus on bullying can be a distraction from the bigger value of overall social emotional health. Students' "emotional centers of the brain" have an impact on cognitive learning.  …

Getting Better Together: PLC Leadership and Number Talks…

Robert Slavin

The potential for gender bias lies within all of us. There are educators in classrooms who tend to call one gender more frequently, accept a brief answers given by boys and expect and welcome longer answers from girls, throughout the building there are those who greet boys with a pat on the back and girls with a gentle hand on the shoulder. Encouragement is offered, even in the earliest of years, in ways that are gender defining. The long held term "guys" is considered gender neutral,…

How a social media hashtag can build school engagement 

(LEON NEAL/Getty Images)

Principals should use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to effectively communicate with parents and other…

How educators are encouraging independent reading 

(Pixabay)

Educators and librarians are finding ways to…