Posts Tagged ‘Immordino-Yang’
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…
Read MoreDon’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…
Read MoreThe 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…
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 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 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…
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