Thompson: SAT Scores Are Great, But Teaching Is An Act of Love

November is Picture Book Month.  Click on the link to find tips for celebrating this beloved medium.

Picture books are the most expensive books to produce, and consequently the most difficult to get published.  Due to the short, concise nature of the text, the picture book author must be fastidious with his or her words, and merciless with his or her revisions and edits, making well-written picture books models of…

Happy Election Day!  It was on this day in 1872, that suffragist Susan B. Anthony broke the law and tried to vote for president.  Hopefully you have honored the sacrifices of all those who came before us and voted already, today.  If not, please get out and vote. 

When you get home, why not read, Duck for President  with your own kids?

Happy reading,

Christine…

The WOW! factor of CCSS

Teaching Hope

In this intriguing Kappan article, Shane Lopez (Gallup Organization) reports that only half of American children are hopeful – that is, believe their future will be better than their present and think they have the power to shape a better future. It seems that we’re not doing a very good job teaching young people how to hope.

“Hopeful thinking combines future thinking with a sense of agency or efficacy,” says…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/11/blend-your-lessons-with-blendspace.html

Decade after decade, there has been a world of propaganda favoring one world government.

Perhaps you would like your students to have the other side of the argument. 

My basic suspicion for years is that if you gave the UN the power to run the world, then the people in charge of the UN would have all the power, and naturally all the psychopaths on the planet would try to figure out how to take control from those few people. In short, the…

5 of the last 7 presidents were lefties, as were Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.  Although a small percentage of the population, lefties are over-represented among architects, musicians, and art/music students.  There is increased left-handedness among children with IQ scores above 132.  Why?

 Ninth Grade: The Most Important Year in High School 

Atlantic Monthly (click on the title above to access the full article.)

The need for seniority in schools

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. 

Now that it is November, you can read my article, "Bedtime Stories for Big Kids" in the current issue of Scholastic Parent & Child.  There you will find tips on keeping the bedtime ritual alive with 'tweens, as well as evidence of the importance of reading aloud with older children.  Experts like Michelle Anthony, Ph.D., Krista Granieri, Adjunct Literacy Professor, and parent, Linda Doherty weigh in with their opinions.  You'll also…

Okay, you'll say I'm cynical. No question. I've been writing about education for 25 years and there is one thing I can  promise, there are many reasons for cynicism.

But follow this blueprint and you'll find that fixing schools is a much simpler proposition than people think.

The tricky part is confronting the possibility that most of our problems are man-made. Made, that is, by John Dewey and his progressive thinkers. As part of their social engineering, they…

Concussions and the Classroom

Reynaldo Leal for The Texas TribuneHigh school football players practice in Brownsville,…