Education
American kids are overmedicated
America is a lot of things: a global leader in innovation, an arms dealer, a centuries-old democracy, an abuser of human rights (sometimes). We are also a pharmacy, and if you are a toddler showing mild signs of hyperactivity, boy do we have the product for you. Meet the “focus pill.” Focus pills are stimulants intended to address attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.…
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Princeton’s role in combating the drug crisis must start on campus
Drug addiction is a public health crisis in the United States. Total overdose deaths have increased in the United States over the last two decades across all demographic groups, with about 17 percent of Americans battling a substance use disorder in the past year. These alarming statistics show just how large of a problem drug dependency has become, but there’s…
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Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today: A Conversation with Joyce Cooper-Kahn
Introduction: Why Executive Functioning Matters When I interviewed Joyce Cooper-Kahn about the new edition of her book, “Late, Lost, and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning,” she modestly credited many of her insights as a child psychologist to what she’d learned from working with her clients. One example she offered was particularly…
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Education and the brain: On grace and development
For Coach Tommy Jones January is cold for baseball, but at this preseason practice, the team sitting, backs against the left field fence in front of our home dugout, I was as warm and shamefaced as I could be. Coach Tommy Jones, as he did before every practice, told us a story about life…
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3 Helpful Scripts for Teachers with Anxious, Perfectionist Students
After “the craziest admissions season ever” last year, and as we head into what will surely be another highly competitive cycle, high school students are understandably increasingly anxious about their academics. I’ve witnessed this firsthand during my years teaching high school and middle school—seeing students vibrating from the stress and barely holding it together,…
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Princeton, it’s time to implement media literacy training
“Seek the truth by asking your own questions and coming to your own conclusions.” Under the gothic arches of the University Chapel in his 2011 Baccalaureate speech, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defined a struggle that has plagued our generation: the exponential rise of online disinformation, which has consistently challenged democracies and hindered…
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Curiosity Did Not Kill the Cat
“Curiosity killed the cat.” Among the world’s most foolish aphorisms, this one stands out. It is quite likely that the lack of curiosity is more likely a fatal condition for cats . . . and humans. Yet another lousy OpEd on education graced – or disgraced – the pages of the New York Times…
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What to do when the world is crumbling
Health & Well-Being: Reframing the Anxiety Conversation
[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.] Like many schools across the country, University School of Milwaukee (WI) has seen…
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“No Excuse, Sir”
This is an address presented to high school students and their parents and teachers. Each time I conduct one of these awards ceremonies, I spend some time thinking about what it is that separates those who are successful students from those who are not. What characteristics do the successful possess? Though it will probably…
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Failing focus
[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.] A few weeks ago, I deleted TikTok. I didn’t make this choice because I…
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The Hollowdays
“We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw.” – T.S. Eliot (“The Hollow Men,” 1925) It is already Christmas at Starbucks. They may call it the “holidays,” of course, just one more way of extracting all the caffeine (i.e., authenticity) and profundity…
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Pathologizing men is unproductive. We should invest in better men-focused spaces.
In her Oct. 22 op-ed, Julianna Lee ’25 argued that male-only spaces could better Princeton’s campus by building “encouragement, empowerment, and friendship for men.” Columnist Ava Johnson ’27 responded on Nov. 4, contending that male-only spaces fail to address men’s problems and “[run] the risk of breeding misogyny and bullying.” These opinions come at a time when…
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Banning books is detrimental to intellectual growth
[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.] Back in February, The Daily Princetonian’s podcast Daybreak interviewed English Professor Anne Cheng on the…
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Learning and the Brain: Bid the geldings be fruitful?
“And all the time – such is the tragicomedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort of…
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Learning and the Brain: On wind and roots
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” – Frederich Nietzsche During the early 1990s, an experiment was taking place in New Mexico called Biosphere 2. It was (and still is) a closed ecological system — air, food, community, everything had to be generated in this biodome. Though now…
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The Road to Success Leads Through Failure: A Conversation with Author Michelle Icard
We Can’t Shield Our Kids From Failure. And We Shouldn’t. “Helicopter” parents (monitoring every detail of their children’s lives) and “snowplow” parents (ensuring no obstacles get in their children’s way) mean well: They genuinely believe that shielding their children from failure can help them succeed. But the more I read about raising successful, resilient…
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No magic bullet for the bullets…
Dear Marja, I sit here across from the TV, and I hear screaming, crying, yelling, grief. Gun violence at another school, this time in Georgia–12 or so kids, babies really, shot by a 14-year-old. A 14-YEAR-OLD. Gun violence, again, but it isn’t just guns. I think it’s a mindset we have got to change,…
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Boosting or Breaking Productivity: The Impact of Hyperfixation on ADHD
Are you ever so engrossed in an activity you love that you completely lose track of time? Does it seem like you lose sense of where you are and what’s happening around you? And when you snap back into the reality of what’s going on around you, are you disoriented? People with ADHD and…
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Another Generation Cometh
[Editor’s note: This speech was delivered to high school students, teachers, and parents 30 years ago. Unfortunately, its focus may be even more relevant today.] Last term, as I watched recovering alcoholic Michael Tripp speak to you during an assembly, I experienced a moment of recognition. It wasn’t a recognition of my own…
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Question Authority!
In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. – Mark Twain I confess to have…
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How to Motivate Children: Science-Based Approaches for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers
[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.] What’s the best way to motivate children? The intrinsic motivation to learn about…
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How Smartphones Are Rewiring Children: The Anxious Generation Review
In Jonathan Haidt’s justly acclaimed new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he repeats a Polynesian expression: “Standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.” Haidt explains that “sometimes it is better to do a big thing rather than many small things.” What’s the “big thing”…
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The ‘fun’ model just isn’t sustainable: a plea against hookup culture
As a top institution of higher education, Princeton tries to do its best to prepare us for our future: offering career fairs, hosting resume writing sessions, and even offering Last Lectures about careers in local government. But there is one place where the University is falling short: preparing its students to form healthy relationships. There…
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What’s the Score?
Well, that didn’t take long. Following the short burst of SAT-optional college admission policies spawned by the pandemic, the testing race is back at full throttle, at least at some Ivies. Among the rationales this time around is the preposterous claim that SATs actually enhance diversity. The argument goes like this: Not submitting test…
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Yale Will Not Save Her
Content warning: This column contains references to sexual violence. On April 2, University President Peter Salovey emailed the Yale community under the subject line “Your Yale, Your Voice,” asking us to complete the 2024 Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct and Resource Awareness [SHARE]. The third in a series of quadrennial surveys administered by the…
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The gifted and talented program is flawed
In the fifth grade, my family moved and I transferred to a new school district in New Jersey. In the West Orange school district, I gained admission into the High Aptitude Program, a gifted and talented program that I would get bussed to weekly. When I entered the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township School District, I applied to…
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Status update: In a toxic relationship with academia
As amazing as academia can be, it also has a darker, alienating side. “I love academia, but is it good for my mental health?” “I don’t know who I am, but I have no time to figure that out.” “Americans live to work.” “Penn is my toxic boyfriend.” These are some of the things…
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Black Princeton is fragmented. Let’s consolidate.
[Editor’s note: Although this essay focuses on Princeton, the issue may be relevant to many colleges and schools.] BSU, PASA, PCC, PEESA, PNSA, PABW, PBMA — call it the alphabet soup of Black student organizations. These are groups intended to cater to specific niches in the Black community and serve to represent its diversity. These organizations serve critical community-building needs that Princeton’s diverse…
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From swiping to sipping: The digital pathway to dependency
More than five billion people use some form of social media. In the United States, 75% of teens have an active account on a social media platform. Digitization has crept into our lives and altered our world. People check social apps for news, trends, academics and to keep in touch with their peers. When we crave information, social media…
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Intolerance towards disagreements is dangerous
I’ve always considered myself a rather stubborn individual, but alongside that trait, I’ve prided myself on a certain level of self-awareness. I’ve been cautious never to impose my thoughts onto others, respecting their perspectives even if they differed from mine. However, as of late, I’ve noticed a shift within myself — it’s not stubbornness that’s…
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The feminine urge to apologize
It is almost as if “sorry” is the default response for women. They apologize for having emotions and showing them, for asking a valid question and for walking in the same direction as someone in the store; they apologize for their failures and their successes. In every situation women automatically respond with an unnecessary “sorry.”…
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Unlocking the dopamine code: A blueprint for college student well-being
As college students navigating the complexities of academia, we often find ourselves contending with formidable adversaries: seasonal depression, lack of motivation and high levels of stress. According to the National College Health Assessment, approximately 80% of college students report experiencing overwhelming levels of anxiety, and nearly 40% grapple with symptoms of depression at some point during…
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How do I avoid the perfectionism trap?
Dear Dr. Saline, I recently started my first full-time job after graduating from college and feel like I’m struggling with the adjustment. I’ve had the usual ups and downs in school which come with ADHD. But now that I’m working, my tendency toward perfectionism has become overwhelming. Worst of all, I don’t think my work…
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Play Can Save Us
The numbing ubiquity of human despair and political idiocy is enough to get a guy down. I spend far too much of my retired life with the New York Times on my lap. My privilege requires that I pay attention, despite knowing that I can’t do a damn thing about most of it. But there…
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Growth Over Grades: Top Ten Takeaways from Wharton Guru Adam Grant
The central question keeping me up at night as an educator is this: How can we maximize every student’s potential? This question emphatically isn’t about making sure a student becomes “the best” at anything in particular, but rather about ensuring all students become their best selves. In his new book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater…
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Schools should teach media literacy
It has never been easier to spread misinformation, either deliberately or by accident, than it is right now. The digital age has amplified a diverse set of voices on social media, for better or worse. While many users are well-intentioned and act as online educators, they have the capacity to spread fake news, which can…
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Finding Our Own Answers: A Case Study
On November 28, I attended a truly excellent webinar conversation with Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, hosted by Intrepid Ed News and OESIS. Once again, I was struck by the response of so many teachers and administrators who, when presented with new insights into how people learn (insights that challenge the status quo), want very specific…
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Democracy in Peril
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote this week about the threats to our democratic republic: Democracy, remember, is not just a set of rules and institutions. It is, as the philosopher John Dewey argued throughout his life, a set of habits and dispositions that must be cultivated and practiced if they are to…
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Overcoming Negativity Bias with Students, Parents, and Colleagues
[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.] At the end of a week, why do we focus on one difficult…
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Give Children Real Life
“This car climbed Mt. Washington.” This bumper sticker is commonly seen in New England and refers to the highest peak in the East. As implied, there is a winding road to the summit. These bumper stickers never fail to irritate, as the “achievement” is remarkably unremarkable. It’s rather like having a CD player with a…
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If You Prick Us
Dollar signs and sob stories
From my fragmented Mandarin to my distaste of “chow mein,” I avidly explored the facets of my Asian-American identity in creative writing. When I picked up the pen, I found myself writing about my mother’s rice rations during the Cultural Revolution and the internal strife of life between two cultures, inspired by writers like Ocean…
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Playing the Get-Out-of-Jail Card: Improving Mental Health in Schools
“I’m walking. I’m walking right out of the door. I won’t ever be back.” The gray-haired teacher who was filmed during her meltdown in her classroom shouting those words to her students and doing exactly what she said became an instant nucleus of condensation for the torrent of frustration and stress felt by thousands of…
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Reading Madness
An article this week in Chalkbeat Tennessee told of Kamryn Sanders, an 8-year-old Memphis 3rd grader who walked out her school’s front door on the day her reading scores were to be revealed. She walked a mile, finally asked for help, and the police returned her to school. Kamryn was afraid, with some justification, that…
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Comments on Test-Optional College Admissions
Having been the dean of admission at Princeton from 1978 to 1983, I read with interest that Harvard and Yale, along with scores of other colleges and universities, made a decision to adopt a “test optional” policy with respect to those applying for the 2023-24 academic year. This initiative prompted me to write this brief…
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The Myth of Lost Learning
This week yet another New York Times piece by Harvard and Stanford “experts” warned of the devastating learning loses sustained by American kids due to the pandemic. Read the piece if you love arcane, statistical analyses and nearly impenetrable pseudo-scientific prose. Or if you need a sleep aid. The educational establishment is rife with this…
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Rigor Mortis: Let’s Redefine Rigor to Meet Student Needs
In a country where self-serve businesses seem a fitting symbol for a pervasive approach to life, I’m not surprised that I get a lot of criticism for promoting schools that make room for the self of the student: “Kids today already seem over-indulged, narcissistic, and entitled,” say my critics. “They need to learn about the…
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Putting the Brakes on Accelerating in Mathematics
“My child is bored in 6th-grade math and I would like them to take Algebra I over the summer.” This is a request that I have heard dozens of times over the past decade, which is dozens more times than I ever heard this request thirty years ago. I am a recovering math department chair…
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Evaluating the Goodness of Fit for Students Planning to Go to College
On Sunday, April 2, 2023, I read an interesting and provocative article by Frank Bruni that was published in the New York Times. The title of the article was “There’s Only One College Rankings List that Matters.” Having worked as the Dean of Admission from 1978 to 1983 at Princeton University, and having evaluated the…
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Learning Disabilities, Learning Differences and Neurodiversity, Oh My!
As a kid growing up with learning differences, especially those not diagnosed until I was older (19!), I have learned a few things about what works and what gets in the way as a learner and as a person whose brain works differently. Back then, there was never a discussion of being “neurodiverse,” in fact,…
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Cool, Connected, and Successful
Attitude usually plays an essential role in success. In my experience, the most successful students tend to see themselves as students and feel a sense of pride in being a student. Learning matters to them; they want to learn (which is very different from merely wanting a good grade). They are intellectually alive and curious,…
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A Cure for Senioritis: How to No Longer Be “Sick” of School
Are you constantly plagued with a lack of motivation? Do you find yourself scrolling through Tik Tok instead of through your extensive list of assignments? Have you claimed, “I’ll just do this in the morning,” knowing full well that you most certainly will not be doing this in the morning? Would your friends describe you as ‘checked…
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#TeacherQuitTok: The face of a current teaching crisis
For the past few months, my TikTok For You page has been riddled with teachers using #TeacherQuitTok on their videos. This hashtag has become a place for teachers to shed light on current problems in education and advocate for change, and it is clear that change is needed. While some teachers have quit their teaching…
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Death to the GPA
The GPA system can stunt our intellectual growth due to undue pressure and excessive grading. As an international student, the concept of the ‘GPA’ — the grade point average — was foreign to me. Since coming to Penn, long gone are the days where homework did not count towards your grade, due dates were…
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Risky Business
Of all the claims that schools make, perhaps the most ubiquitous is the assertion that “our students learn to take risks.” Risk-taking is meant to suggest that students are able to “move out of their comfort zones” by trying new things—like befriending classmates from other cultures or leaping into new activities or, especially, engaging with…
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Black history is your history too
People of all races should see themselves in Black history. In elementary school, February was the only time I learned about Black historical figures. I recall cutting out paper dolls of Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks — all the same shade of brown due to the singular brown crayon. While…
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Phonics Can Cure Cancer
An Open Letter to my 7th Graders
How Penn did and didn’t prepare me to teach you I took a leap to become your teacher; after four years as an undergrad at Penn, I thought I would be ready to instruct middle schoolers. I declared a major in English very early on, but I grew a passion for serving students and…
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Gaming the Educational System
I did not grow up a “gamer.” I never played D & D. We had an Atari (I am that old), but I had no thumb intelligence. I had no interest in PS anything, Nintendo, or any of the other game systems. I watched, observed, and studied kids playing lots of games through the years…
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The Content of Character
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Few readers will be reading this quote for the first time. Those on the anti-racist…
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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…
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Finding 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…
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Because 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…
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Creating Better Schools: Let’s Look to Parents
True 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…
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Poison 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…
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On 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…
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How 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…
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Group 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…
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Blood 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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Oren’s First 100 Days of School
Or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death [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.] Okay, I’ll level with you: I have no idea how many days of school…
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The Beatings Will Continue
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” is a rather familiar quip of unknown origin. Two recent news stories remind of just how apt the saying remains. The first was an astonishing New York Times report on the reinstitution of paddling as a disciplinary tool in a Missouri school district. Surprisingly, paddling children in school remains…
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An Education in Racism
A Moveable Festival
Or, The Only Jew In Kathmandu [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.] I’ve grown to love the rain here, the way it paints the trees a crisp, dark…
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College Admission – Failed Rite of Passage
When It Comes to School Culture, Words Aren’t Enough
Educators must take systematic steps to ensure that a school’s mission and values are reflected in students’ and teachers’ actual experiences. Schools have different cultures created by their beliefs, values, goals, and behavioral norms—cultures that are often described on a continuum from nurturing to toxic. An increase in cases of depression, instances of suicide, and…
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By The Book
Or, When it Rains . . . [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.] One of my favorite things about learning a new language is seeing how the vocabulary, structures,…
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BENEFITS AND DANGERS OF TEEN TECHNOLOGY USE
Site Currently Under Construction
Or, Oren Needs a Friend [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.] At 9:55 am the bell rings (or, I should say, someone bangs on the metal plate) to…
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Extra School
In my experience as a teacher, I’ve collected memories that illustrate for me what needs to be improved in middle school education. My thesis? Schools filled with students from poorer families (low SES–socioeconomic status) need to do more to engage their students intellectually. One such illustrative memory is of a brilliant African-American economics major from…
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Emotion, Intelligence, and Learning
Two of the most persistent myths about learning are that emotion and rational thought can be treated separately and that emotions interfere with clear thinking and learning. They certainly can. Grief and rage or joy and excitement can easily overwhelm focus and motivation for even the most interesting lesson. So, it’s not surprising that educators…
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Beautiful Views of Terrifying Drops
Or, Gaining a Little Height on Life [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.] It’s hard for me not to see the last nine days as a little…
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Being a Good Teacher
Last week my grandchildren, Maddie and Jack, were in an out-of-school production of Cinderella. My wife, Maddie’s and Jack’s parents, and I were delighted and grateful that first grader Jack’s teacher came to the evening performance, a gift well beyond the call of duty. He was thrilled. She offered congratulations and hugged him warmly before leaving. This…
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Schools: The Persistence of Failure; Paths to Success
I have spent a lifetime in schools–as student, teacher, administrator, parent, and trustee. I am a weary veteran of the endless wars over what’s to blame for the sorry state of education. As covid and virtual schooling have made even clearer, we need to do a better job. Test scores are lousy; achievement and learning…
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We must shift the way we test understanding
Last year, many professors faced a difficult decision: How would they make sure students were given a fair chance when taking exams remotely? For a politics course I took in the fall semester, the professor normally used an exam that centered around short questions related to readings throughout the semester. The virtual format meant that…
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Pull Those Damn Bootstraps!
“Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps!” This exclamation captures the prevailing attitude of many Americans, mostly conservatives, toward the least advantaged among us. The sentiment is accompanied by a belief that we live in a meritocracy, where one deserves what they get and get what they deserve. It is a silly admonition because, of…
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Washing Dust From the Soul
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” – Pablo Picasso We are in the midst of a prolonged dust storm in America. Daily life brings reports of yet another shooting, a pandemic surge on the horizon, emotional fatigue from a year of isolation, the threat of domestic terrorism…
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Empathy, Balance, & Dilution
(Editor’s note: Although this article focuses on a specific school, its implications have universal application.) Empathy. Balance. Inclusion. [EBI] These three values are essential to the pursuits of Andover, drilled into its students and even visible on the front page of its website. Unfortunately, they’re beginning to feel hollow—a sentiment that echoes the efficacy of…
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Faculty and Student Wellness: Embracing the Interdependence
Earlier this summer, during an online discussion about grading practices, a teacher made a familiar, yet rarely challenged assertion: “When a student gets a D/F—or even an A—in my class, that’s the grade they earned.” My translation: “I provide opportunities for students to succeed. Their failure is on them, not me. It’s their choice.” In…
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The First Essay
English essays. Some of us love them, some of us hate them. But regardless, we all write them. Fear not, however, because I’m not writing to provide advice, or make you feel bad about the quality of your writing. Instead, I’d like to reflect upon the aspects of English classes that have room for improvement,…
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Colleges Have Damaged Education
One of the most profound changes in United States culture during my lifetime is the role of higher education. By and large I think it has not been change for the best. In many ways colleges and universities have damaged education and had a number of deleterious impacts on society. In 1950 29.7% of high…
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Pity the White Folks
Tourists in the Capitol! This was Georgia Representative Andrew Clydes’s characterization of the fine folks who visited Washington D.C. on January 6th. It might have been a tad more understandable if Clyde were a Florida Congressman. I did see some slight resemblance between the merry marauders in the Capitol and some scenes from spring break…
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Let’s Dump The ABC’s — And D’s and F’s, Too
The votes are in. Experience, common sense and neuroscientists agree: People don’t learn when they are scared. Well, they learn, but they don’t learn math or history or whatever lessons schools are actually trying to teach. Kids learn to hate school or to fear Mr. Smith or even to hate themselves, and the cause is…
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Let’s not conflate white supremacy with white people
I never thought I’d hear a U.S. president explicitly call out white supremacy in an inauguration address. For President Joe Biden to follow it up a week later with a slate of executive orders aimed at pursuing a racial equity agenda offers an encouraging start to the much more difficult project of healing the divisions…
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READ, DAMN IT!
Education blogger Jan Resseger published a particularly fine piece on April 26, reporting the alarming backward trend toward the “Read by third grade or else!” policies of the recent past. As she convincingly argues, such an approach is particularly harmful as we emerge from the pandemic. What kids need most is social and emotional reconnection,…
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Creating Environments Where Black Students Can Thrive
As white adoptive parents raising a biracial son, my husband and I set out to equip him and ourselves with the tools to navigate an experience far more complex than our own. Long before he was born, we tried to prepare, educating ourselves by devouring research and resources about race and racism and talking to…
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Relying on Your Own Mind
A recent issue of Time magazine launched the new “Kid of the Year” recognition. Along with this year’s selection of Gitanjali Rao, the magazine profiled four other young people whose accomplishments, imagination, and engagement in life are impressive. As I read about them, I couldn’t help imagining them among the thousands of other students I…
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Call Me Pathologically “Woke”
In a recent New York Times column, conservative pundit Bret Stephens argued strenuously that divisiveness was ruining our great nation. He was specifically irritated by a proposed ethnic studies curriculum in California’s public schools. He hauled out all the culture war piñatas and beat them relentlessly. “Critical race theory” was most prominent among the targets. His conservative columns routinely…
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Neutral Doesn’t Work When Talking About Race
When people take a “neutral position” on race, it doesn’t work. This describes the main finding of a study I explored in my doctoral dissertation at University of California, Los Angeles. The study, conducted in 2020 and guided by Pedro Noguera, consisted of in-depth interviews with 30 recent alumni of color, representing Black, Latinx, and…
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The Problem with Inclusion: Time to Shift to Belonging
“Hummus…what’s that?” I remember asking my 9th grade white peers as we sat around the lunch table for the first time, aware of their looks and smirks because I did not know what it was. In my Afro-Caribbean immigrant household, hummus was not on the menu. This was one of the first othering experiences I…
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Zoom is the Devil’s Work
Resist Remote Learning! “It’s like deja vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra I have no idea what the 20th century sage was referring to, but the quote is apt when considering the locomotive bearing down on education as the light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel grows brighter. Early in the 20th century…
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The college major system is archaic
While much of the learning done in college is valuable, a significant proportion of students don’t actually use their undergraduate degree in their future career. Even though a college education is a useful experience with regard to diversity of thought and academic rigor, students would be much better off if they were permitted to explore…
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Drained to exhaustion by online learning, students should be given less school work
I began to feel the adverse effects of online school while doing homework one night during our second week. My mind a relentless murmur of the same fatigue that seemed to unfocus my eyes and sway my thoughts during the school day, I spent an hour reading a passage again and again, trying to drill…
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How high schools failed victims of sexual assault
Sexual assault may seem like a distant fear for some, but on college campuses, it is an everyday reality. Of course, the combination of freedom and alcohol creates a dangerous environment and enhances teens’ raging hormones, thus increasing the likelihood of assault occurring. But the problem does not entirely arise from students seeking to indulge…
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Seeking a Pandemic Alternative to Tough Love
My teacherly instinct is to embed love and encouragement into my pedagogy. I go out of my way to get to know my students, to learn their extracurricular interests, family structures, social problems, and athletic achievements. I believe that students learn best from teachers who they like and who they believe like them. And I…
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I hate The Great Gatsby
Across the country, students are being brainwashed. The boomers blame social media, and they may be right. But there’s another kind of indoctrination that grinds my gears — I speak of the cult of the American high school English class. Lately, there has been much evaluation of what we teach children, primarily in history classes.…
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More than just a time difference: Reflections of an international student
A 14-hour time difference from Korea to Princeton is difficult, as anyone I’ve complained to about my sleep schedule can attest. Yet being an international student in the age of COVID-19 means much more than a time difference. Rather, what’s most frustrating is feeling different and oftentimes less important than our United States-based peers. The…
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Searching for my reasons
More times than I can recall, I’ve started a class eager to learn about some fascinating topic. But as the semester progresses and piles on exams and homework, the course grows less and less interesting. The desire to perform well in the course starts to replace my original curiosity, until I’m not sure why I…
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Sleepwalking through School
Failure is the fate of most teachers at least some of the time. In their classrooms sit students whom, despite their most heroic efforts, they just can’t reach–like TJ, a boy who traveled from Indiana to attend an eastern boarding school and found his way into my classroom. Every fall, I struggled to get students…
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The MAT 202 cheating scandal is a problem of our making
For most of us, the news that the Committee on Discipline (COD) is investigating dozens of MAT 202 students warrants nothing more than a casual glance. We wonder how it must feel to be accused of cheating. Perhaps our peers under investigation elicit a pang of sympathy. Perhaps they don’t. “Those 202 kids got what was coming…
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Online School Doesn’t Need to Replicate the Classroom Model
The sudden immersion into distance learning has not been easy for students or teachers. An article last spring in Forbes cites surveys that find that over 75% of high school students hate the experience, while teachers have been largely unprepared for it. Many teachers describe the difficulties and steep learning curve with which they struggle.…
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The future of education: A lesson from COVID-19
For the past year, I have wanted to write about technology in education. When I first arrived at the University, I was surprised that at an institution whose endowment lies multiple orders of magnitude beyond any amount of money I could imagine, I found classrooms containing no technology more recent than electric lights or plastic…
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Why you don’t feel successful at Princeton
I spent my first two summers of high school completing state-required gym classes so that I could fit more science classes into my schedule during the academic year. Every morning, I had to run a lap on the track with my classmates under the searing July sun. I ran these sprints several dozen times, and…
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Voices from the Invisible: The Reality of Black Lives in Our Schools
School people, especially boards and heads, are really good at spinning words into fluffy fantasies of utopian worlds where they have “created diverse, inclusive communities,” “protected and empowered the most vulnerable” and “cultivated environments to unlock the richness of diversity.” Lofty sentences appear in glossy catalogs and websites and swaddle prospective parents and students of…
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This isn’t normal
A tweet went around this week saying that if you don’t come out of quarantine with a new skill or more knowledge, “you didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline.” It was a harmful manifestation of the paradox we all face right now: sitting at home, you think you should be doing more,…
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Accommodations, year-round
As we enter our third week of courses conducted entirely online and adjust to this new reality, we need to ask ourselves: Why weren’t these services readily available before the COVID-19 pandemic? These services include: every course material (including textbooks) available online, Zoom lectures recorded for future replay and review and more lenient attendance policies…
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How to succeed at “Zoom University”
Having half of our semester online due to the COVID-19 outbreak was a big shock to The University of Tampa community. These past couple of weeks have felt like an eternity, sitting in the house and not having classes to go to everyday. I can’t believe it’s been less than a month since the majority…
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The attention economy is corrupting the classroom
Distractions engendered by the use of technology in class You have 15 minutes. What would you — a curious, respectful student, part of a privileged 4.3% — rather indulge: an Instagram post or the insights of a leading academic? The choice seems obvious. But our everyday practices speak to a bleaker reality. The promises of…
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Professors, show that you care
Extensive academic expertise is not enough to foster mentorships When I watched Good Will Hunting for the first time as a high schooler, I marveled over how the professor in the movie not only helped Will cultivate a passion for mathematics but also undertook Will’s personal strife and actively helped him overcome it. Although it’s…
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Don’t Stop, Don’t Put Down Your Pencil
The outrage this year over the attempts of the rich and infamous to rig the college admissions process in favor of their children has focused new attention on an old issue: purchasing a diagnosis to qualify for extended time on standardized tests. During my 18 years as an assistant head of school, from the late…
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The role of a role model: Inspiring girls in school from a younger age
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I saw little representation of women in STEM fields. The inspirational autobiographies I read while growing up mostly consisted of women politicians or writers. The shelves of our libraries were always lined with books written by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, or Beverly Cleary. Once in a while,…
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Khan Academy highlights deficiencies in conventional teaching methods
Why our existing educational support system isn’t enough Have you ever prepared for an exam, only to realize that you didn’t understand what was taught in class? How often do you rely on Khan Academy to learn the material that you didn’t understand from your lectures? Khan Academy has truly changed who we are as…
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Why a decision that lasts a lifetime for students should receive more attention and assistance
Students are settling for majors they are not happy with just to make a decision. Thinking back, most can relate to the ambitious change that occurred when moving into college. You felt eager to take on the challenges of the unknown and try new things. It is a foreign experience that is difficult to fully…
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Giving credit where credit is due
As I headed into this semester’s midterms, I tried to figure out how I was going to study for my four exams. The stress of the semester had culminated in the challenge of attempting to ready myself for my tests while keeping up with regular class work, as well. Most of this semester has been…
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Writing Never Gets Easier — That’s the Point
You’re sitting in Bobst Library between classes, being the responsible student that you are and actually using your only break of the day to start that essay due at 8 a.m. tomorrow. But almost immediately, you find that your brain decides to fry itself and forget the entire English lexicon. You end up staring at…
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Reflections on Navigating the High School Admission Process
It typically begins in seventh grade. Sometime in March or April. Unfamiliar feelings. Wandering eyes. Vague insecurities. Burgeoning cases of FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” A dim awareness that other people are watching you, wondering what you’re thinking. This isn’t the first sign of puberty. These are not the hormone-induced emotions of fragile…
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Sailing Through High School: A Nautical Alternative
When my kids were little and needed to get out of the house, I took them down to the water. There was much to do: skip rocks, play in the sand, and make dams to hold back the tide. If the tide was low, we looked for creatures under the rocks. We had a dory…
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Finding Your Voice
Writing is difficult – especially when what you’re writing will be published on the Internet, where anyone and everyone can read it. I started this column last fall hoping that it would help me improve my writing. I’d always enjoyed the rewarding feeling that comes with putting your thoughts down on paper, and I’d reached…
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The Tune of the Hick’ry Stick: An Apology
“What part of this don’t you understand?” the judge asked, frustration edging her voice. “You’re fifteen. The law says you need to be in school. Do you think the rules don’t apply to you?” The boy looked at her, swiveling slightly in the green, high-backed chair. He tugged a couple of times at his long…
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Were our textbooks really that helpful?
Before break, some friends in my dorm and I were discussing the different types of educations we received from elementary school through high school. There were the expected differences that arose between private and public schools, but we also realized there were stark differences based on where we grew up. Three of us — from…
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How Coming Out as a Gay Teacher Helped My Students
Being out only endeared this teacher to his adolescent charges. As a gay high school teacher, I often ask myself how to best navigate my sexual orientation in my classroom. I believe that at a time when cultural conversations about what it means to be a man or a woman are not so clear, LGBT…
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Professors are right — taking notes by hand leads to greater comprehension, learning in class
Though banning laptops seems juvenile, taking notes by hand eliminates distractions, making lectures more conducive for learning It seems as though the age of laptops in classrooms came and went in the blink of an eye. To start off the school year, many professors have put their foot down and begun to insist that…
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The Show Must Go On: Reflecting on the Difficult Decisions Heads Have to Make
Students at The Chicago Academy for the Arts have a long history of taking on challenging material. However, the school’s ability to handle controversial work was recently put to the test. ********* Winter break was a few easy days away when Ben Dicke, the chair of our theatre department, stopped by my office to discuss…
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The Learning Curve: How We Learn and Rethinking the Education Model
(NOTE: Occasionally, we post articles about learning that we think will help parents evaluate their child’s experiences in school and enable parents to discuss education issues with teachers and school administrators. This article is one of those.) In the 18th and 19th centuries, various infections, often called childbed fever, were common causes of childbirth-related maternal…
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Helping Your Child Succeed in School
Many parents suffer from watching their son or daughter struggle in school. They often feel powerless to help. Daniel Franklin knows that parents can help. He believes that the relationship–the partnership–between a caregiver and child is the single most important factor in transforming struggle into success. He has written a book with the number-one goal…
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Changing the way we teach race
In the eighth grade I was asked if I wanted to step out of the room while the class learned about slavery. When I politely declined, I was allowed to sit with my classmates as we were taught the wonders of slave culture — the music and religions cultivated from a beautiful blend of two cultures,…
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Resilience gets personal…
My best friend’s daughter killed herself last spring. Our families had grown up together. We were on vacation with her parents when it happened and got the news together. And no, we didn’t see it coming. I know we can’t stop kids from killing themselves, but I feel compelled to try, no doubt like every…
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Thinking About Campus Transparency
To pass the science building at night is to wonder at the glow of lab tables and Smartboards, the white lab coats and goggles neatly hung, the textbooks and spider plants bathed in the light of energy-efficient dimmers. You don’t have to look closely to catch the faculty prepping the week’s lessons—or tending to something…
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A Teacher Opens Up About Becoming a Student in a MOOC
On the wall in the most inconspicuous and least traveled room in my house, two framed certificates from selective and expensive institutions of higher learning proclaim that I have completed a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. Next to them hang two other certificates indicating that I have completed and passed two online MIT courses…
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Group projects are horrible
There are a few things a professor can say that will automatically make me fear taking a class. For example, “This class is not curved,” or, “I expect half of you to fail or drop out of my course,” or the awful “The final is cumulative.” But in my opinion, nothing is worse than the…
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Digital Citizenship and Social-Emotional Skills Are Inseparable
Every school has its own unique culture. It is made up of all the ways in which students relate to one another and their teachers. In today’s world, digital devices in particular (and technology in general) have a huge effect on these relationships. For better or worse, communication is different now, and it has the…
Read MoreShort Circuit
Teachers can learn something from electricians. For example, taking the path of least resistance isn’t always the best way to go. If we want the lights to go on, the current needs to flow through the full circuit, and a short cut, like a nail lying across the wire, usually results in darkness. English teachers,…
Read MoreAt Winsor School, the Student-Teacher Relationship Drives Academic Support
Laura Vantine Academic support is a significant concern for independent schools — more so today than in the past. On the surface, the trends seem worrisome: A number of schools say more students are struggling, while others report that more parents are pushing for individual support and accommodations, specifically so their children can gain extended time…
Read MoreMotivation
It was cold, a November evening, and I was the administrator on duty, so I was walking around the campus shortly after dinner on my way to the athletic center to lock the building. The last coach to leave after practice was supposed to lock up but never did. My mood was not good. The…
Read MoreThe Costs of Paying Attention, The Value of Reflection
Recent studies done by neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (University of Southern California) and her colleague Joanna Christodoulou (Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT) suggest that educators need to consider much more carefully the role of reflection in learning.1 They cite new theories of two brain systems that control our attention. One is activated when we engage with…
Read MoreStop telling kids you’re bad at math. You are spreading math anxiety ‘like a virus.’
“How was skiing?” I asked my 14-year old daughter as she hauled her boot bag into the car. “Well, the ratio of snow to ground was definitely low,” she replied, adding that she had tried to figure the ratio of snow-to-ground during practice but had received only mystified looks. “Stop the math!” demanded a coach. “You…
Read MoreLearning Disabled or School Disabled?
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, my grandson is one of about 6.4 million children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. The symptoms of ADHD include inattentiveness in school, distractibility, inability to sustain attention, difficulty finishing school work, difficulty shifting from task to task, procrastination, and fidgeting when seated. In other words, if you…
Read MoreAssessments That Provide Real Insight into Learning
A math teacher described a problem he was having with his 2nd graders: “One of the goals of our math curriculum is to enable the students to articulate their mathematical reasoning. We would like them to explain, ‘The problem said two more came, so I knew I needed to add,’ but instead we get, ‘I…
Read MoreAdolescents Struggle to Identify Fake News
Given the multitude of phony news stories spawned during the 2016 election, culminating in the shooting at a D.C. pizza restaurant, the Stanford History Education Group’s study of adolescents’ ability to judge the credibility of all the information vying for their attention in cyberspace is amazingly timely. The study focused on over 7,800 middle school,…
Read MoreMy School, My Self
“I just needed a place where I could be myself.” That was Teri’s assessment of what was missing from her life in school, and my experience suggests that she speaks for hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of students. School is not typically a place for the self, at least not the self of students. A…
Read MoreWhat Happens to Empathy Deferred?
As an alumnus of an independent school, I have enjoyed reading about the increasing emphasis on teaching cooperation, teamwork, mindfulness, and empathy. As independent schools become more globally and racially diverse, the need for greater reflection, for awareness of one’s own thinking and biases, and for curiosity about the perspectives of others also grows. The…
Read MoreCivics in Uncivil Times
Facing down the challenges of teaching the 2016 election, with resources for preparing engaged citizens In a chaotic and hostile election season — rupturing political parties, incessant name-calling, and growing dissension along racial and class lines — it may be tempting for educators to discourage political talk at school. But as the school…
Read MoreArab American Students in Public Schools
Arab Americans in U.S. schools represent more than 20 countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. They share many similarities with other immigrant groups seeking to establish an ethnic identity in a heterogeneous country, but they also face additional challenges. These result especially from negative stereotyping; racism and discrimination; widespread misinformation about their history…
Read MoreThe Public Purpose of Private Schools
Independent schools are uniquely positioned to make a difference in the public domain. Given the societal turf independent schools occupy, the considerable resources they command, and the powerful network of caring and influential people they attract, independent schools have the opportunity – and, I believe, the obligation – to do more than educate 1.5 percent…
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What Should Parents and Teachers Know About Bullying
Bullying in schools is a worldwide problem that can have negative effects on the general school climate and on the right of students to learn in a safe environment without fear. Bullying can also have negative lifelong consequences—both for students who bully and for their victims. This brochure characterizes bullies and their victims, offers advice…
Read MoreThe Trouble with the Standards Movement
With the best of intentions, President George Bush and the nation’s governors met in 1989 in Charlottesville, Virginia, to make the schools of the United States into world-class institutions, competitive with the best schools among industrialized countries. By calling for the creation of high standards with tests to measure student achievement and to hold teachers…
Read MoreCOMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION The Groton/Dunstable School district’s Community Service Learning and Development (CSLD) initiative has been evolving over the past years through the initial efforts of Ms. Donna Kwajewski, director of Curriculum and Staff Development and Mr. Joseph Dillon, Principal, Groton/Dunstable Regional High School. It was at the high school that the first CSLD efforts began. Now,…
Read MoreDiscipline Project Tests Group Participation
New Justice Department research helps validate the need for all members of the “school community” to work together to improve campus climates. Although many aspects of the bullying problem remain controversial, one finding has received general support: The real culprit is the “growing-up environment” of the bully. Adults in the bully’s environment are often unaware…
Read MoreThe Challenges of Parent Involvement Research
Despite the validity of some studies, much parent involvement research to date contains serious methodological flaws. But it is possible that more effective parent involvement will generate cost savings by lessening the need for remedial and other special programs. National Council of Jewish Women Center for the Child Amy J. L. Baker and Laura M.…
Read MoreSchool Strategies for Increasing Safety
The recent incidents of horrible violence at presumably safe schools in protected communities has caused great concern and disillusionment as teachers, parents, and students face the fact that even these schools are vulnerable to violent acts. Numerous reports show schools organizing to manage such a potential crisis. But are public schools really dangerous places? Should…
Read MoreA Symbiosis of Sorts School Violence and the Media
The schools and the media sometimes seem locked in a symbiotic dance of death, making it difficult to think about school violence without taking note of its connection to the ever-present media. Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media Teachers College, Columbia University by Gene I. Maeroff The names roll off the tongue like a…
Read MorePreparing Middle School Students for a Career
How can middle schools promote the development and education of adolescents? How can they focus students’ attention on career opportunities and training? This article offers families some ideas about how they can encourage their children’s career awareness. Information in this guide was drawn from Digest No. 155 published by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult,…
Read MoreNew Information on Youth Who Drop Out: Why They Leave and What Happens to Them
from ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education by Wendy Schwartz It has been known for many years that young people who don’t complete high school face many more problems in later life than do people who graduate. But, while national leaders have demanded that schools, communities, and families make a major effort to retain students, the…
Read MoreCareer Development for African American and Latina Females
African American and Latina adolescent females need extensive support for developing and implementing career plans. There is a need to provide female adolescents of color with a career education that will enable both economic self-sufficiency and personal fulfillment. ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education by Jeanne Weiler Low-income African American and Latina adolescent females need extensive…
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