Education
Teacher Agency Is a Good Thing: Supporting Teacher Voices
“[T]he percentages of teachers who agreed with positive statements about their profession were higher among teachers who believed their opinions were considered in school decisions and lower among those who did not believe they had a voice.” –Center on Education Policy survey Five years of work–five years that, on one night, faced a final…
Read MoreFinding My Own Answers
Or, Even Teachers Get The Blues [Editor’s note: Oren Karp is a recent graduate of Brown University and a Fulbright Scholar teaching English in Kathmandu, Nepal. He posts an account of his life in Nepal every few weeks. This essay is an excerpt from his most recent posting; you can read the full essay…
Read MoreBecause They Need It
“Because they need it.” – Whitney Tilson Tilson is a multimillionaire hedge fund manager who is a major supporter of education “reform,” particularly the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) chain. “Because they need it,” was Tilson’s unguarded response to a question at a seminar about KIPP’s draconian disciplinary practices. “They” referred to the poor Black…
Read MoreCreating Better Schools: Let’s Look to Parents
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] “We are greater than and greater for, the sum of us.” — Heather McGhee, The…
Read MoreTrue Confessions of a Dyslexic…
A dyslexic head of school?? Surprised? You shouldn’t be, but most folks are. The perception of dyslexia in society is one of people crippled by the inability to spell, read, or write. In fact, ask someone what dyslexia is, and they might say something like “switching ‘d’ for ‘b’.” While this perception may have some…
Read MorePoison Ivy
For months, she struggled silently with a sense of worthlessness. She had panic attacks that left her trembling. Nightmares that made her cry. She’d told only a handful of friends about the sexual assault she endured while she was home the summer after her freshman year. Now, as she finished her sophomore year at Yale…
Read MoreOn Edge
Transitions take our feet out from under us, make our knees weak, our hearts hurt, especially ones we don’t plan. The loss of a beloved teacher, the disappearance of a pet, grandparents saying goodbye before a flight home. Our boy, Elias, comes without filters, without the ability to express his feelings in words, and grief…
Read MoreHow to Teach Problem-Solving (to a Kinder or a Teen or Anyone in Between!)
As parents and teachers, we hate to see our kids struggle with problems. So when they come to us for help, our natural reaction is to do just that–help them find solutions to their problems. Too often, however, we give into our helpful nature (and desire not to see those we care about suffer in…
Read MoreGroup work doesn’t work
We’ve all been there — the group chat is going off because your group members are trying to figure out why a member hasn’t touched the shared assignment document that’s due in three hours. They are fuming because that person didn’t hold up their end of the commitment and now you all need to scramble…
Read MoreBlood on Their Hands
It was well past midnight. I awoke with a start as a silhouette appeared in my dorm room doorway. My heart pounded as a person approached, knelt at my bed and whispered, “Help me.” The person was a blond, carefree college senior whom I had befriended at several parties. We were drawn together by a…
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