[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear Utah state Senator Howard Stephenson (R, Salt Lake) speak about the success of Computer Assisted Instructional Software (CAIS) and its hugely successful […]
High School
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, High School
100 Kindergarteners: An Experiment with Our Children!
100! 100 children were placed last year in a Kindergarten class as an experiment in learning. Of course, this isn’t being tried at a private school whose students are children of our country’s top earners. It is being tried in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Detroit. The students are all placed in the […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, From the Front Lines, High School, Instructional Strategies, Literacy
Preparing Career Ready Students? Go Back to Kindergarten
At the beginning of my teaching career, I worked as the 8th grade English Language Arts teacher in a K-8 parochial school. Once a month, my students would pair up with the kindergarten students to complete a creative project: paper maché globes, paper kites, Q & A interviews. On those afternoons, my noisy and awkward adolescents longingly stared at various […]
Posted inFeatured, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, School Improvement, Social Studies
How Do You… DBQ?
Teaching with those three little letters can either rev up or rev down a classroom in minutes. D for Document, B for Based and Q for Question is how educators provide standards-based assessment connecting students to a broad range of primary sources and a broader range of perspectives. As a teaching tool it intends to present […]
Posted inFeatured, High School, How to Fix Education, Literacy, Opinion
Growth Mindset: The Power of "Yet"
“Yet.” A powerful three-letter word that means, “an implied time, still, even or nevertheless”. There seems to be a phenomenon going around the world that I personally find amazing! It’s reaching schools, churches, and people in general….it’s the power of the little word “yet.” In a world depleted of hope; in a world of wanting what we want, when we […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, High School, Opinion, Principals' Corner
Why Passing A Standardized Test Should not be a Graduation Requirement
Beginning with my high school graduating Class of 2001, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania instituted several shifts in policy regarding graduation requirements. My class was the first to be incorporated with a graduation project, which has since come and gone. The following graduating class was the first to have to complete the Pennsylvania System of School […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Opinion, Social Studies
"Exceptionalism" as the new American Idiocy: an Outlaw AP US History Teacher Responds
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] If you are an educator, and especially an AP Teacher, or a current or former recipient of an AP education, you could not have missed the news this week that the […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, High School, Literacy
Prepare for Next Week's Forecast: Snowy, with a Chance of School
It’s snowing again in New England. It’s February. No surprise. In fact, snow days are not a surprise for thousands of school districts across the US. Snow days interrupt instruction. Again, No surprise. It’s a fact that schools have requirements for school instruction days and for instruction hours or seat time. So if snow days and […]