Smart School Supplies Shopping Tips
“Families consider back-to-school and college items as an essential category.” ~ Matthew Shay, NFP President & CEO Make no mistake about it: Happy about it or not, school bells are about to ring, and back-to-school shopping again uppermost on the minds of...
Other-Wise Snippet: Lollipop, Lollipop, Oh, Lolli, Lollipop…
At least for today, I'm hitting the school news pause button. It’s all become quite political, so, this time around, I'm turning to history. Not the read the chapter and answer the the-end-of chapter questions kind but history that reminds us of the wonder of...
8 Summertime K-12 News Items Not to Be Missed from Learning Loss to Burned Out Teachers
*** The Government Accountability Office report found that: 64% of teachers said they had more students make less academic progress during the pandemic than in a typical school year. 45% of teachers had at least 50% of their students behind academically when school...
Teachers: Inspiring, Par for the Course, or Just Plain Second-Rate?
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." ~ William A. Ward. Researchers at the University of Maryland and Harvard recently analyzed 54 teachers randomly assigned to classrooms in their...
9 Tips to Get Your Kid Ready and Well-Organized for Another School Year
In my carefree kid days, homework was often left behind—sometimes on my desk, in my unmade bed, or even under it, falling victim to the morning rush. And, yes, I usually left assignments for the last minute—when I remembered them at all. Made my grades suffer and...
Hot Diggity Dog, It’s Summertime and the Eatin’ Is Good!!
Wieners, frankfurters, franks, weenies, dogs, pups, red hots… Out with the hat and gloves, out with frosted-over windshields and early sunsets. In with sprinklers and flowers, bathing suits and, if lucky, get-away vacations. For many, we’re in the middle of the best...
The Day after the Fourth of July, 2022…
I’m a talker, some would call me a chatterbox, always with something to say or add to a conversation. Not so much today, however… I learned to love America right from the start from my immigrant father who, as a 14-year-old boy, survived the Turkish led Armenian...
Another COVID Consequence: Lagging Language Development in Babies and Toddlers
In the recent Education Week “Babies Are Saying Less Since the Pandemic: Why Schools Should Worry,” Early Head Start teacher explained, “It seems like a lot of our kids now are not where other kids have been. They’re not cooing and they’re not doing the things I...
Post-COVID Tutoring: Making the Grade, a Full-On Negative, or Somewhere in Between?
In the May 22 edition of The Atlantic, economist and faculty director of Harvard's Center for Education Policy Thomas Kane penned “Kids Are Far, Far Behind in School,” writing that “The achievement loss is far greater than most educators and parents seem to...
Schooling: What Students Need But May Not Get
A June 10, USA Today Snapshot survey on “What Teens Want for Post-Pandemic School” found that: 65% want “completely in person” 18% want “online/in-person mix” 9% want “completely online” 7% were “unsure” 1% had no answer That same week, Education Week published...
Quotables from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joan Didion to Brian Andreas and Thoreau
There’s something about a good quote. Some resonate and stay with us for a long time, others make us nod in agreement—or not—while others make us smile at their simple truths. Among my favorites… ** “Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your...
From Freed Black Slaves Honoring Union Soldiers at our First Memorial Day in 1865 to Today’s TAPS ACROSS AMERICA
Back in post-Civil War 1868, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic General John A. Logan declared May 30th a Memorial Day “for the purpose of strewing flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during...
Steps to Take to Counter These Troubling Times
Back in 1949, Mental Health America made May Mental Health Awareness Month to raise awareness and understanding. Attitudes have certainly changed/improved since then, but all is not well nowadays, not at all. Indeed, one headline after another speaks to our...
Teacher Appreciation Week, May 2 – May 6, Falls Short
Findings of the Merrimack College Teacher Survey finds that teachers feel disrespected, undervalued, and stretched too thin.
The Holocaust and the Question: Who Has the Right to Forgive on Behalf of Another?
In Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower, he tells about when, as a young Jewish concentration camp prisoner, he was taken from a concentration camp to sit at a dying German soldier's bedside. He listens as the soldier confesses to helping herd hundreds of Jews into a...
Part I: Do We Have the Right to Speak for a Victim and Forgive the Perpetrator?
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” ~ Winston Churchill, May 15, 2020 Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at sundown on April 27 and ends at nightfall on the 28th in recognition of the 6 million Jews who lost their lives—1-1/2 of them...
Biden, Our First President to Call the Deaths of Some 1.2 Million Armenians a Genocide
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” ~ Adolph Hitler, August 22, 1939 She said she came into this world barefooted and would leave it the same way. Handing her shoes to her grandson, she met her death with countless other Armenians at...
Earth Day ’22 and a Call to Keep Cleaning Up
It’s a big deal, a very big deal that has now tied together the environment, climate change, even diet all under the Earth Day umbrella and its 3Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle. Just this week came Time Magazine’s “Earth, Inc.” and Nutrition Action’s “The Planet Lover’s...
The Antidote For These Tough Times, 11-Year-Old Role Model, Orion Jean
As the headlines lurch from one crisis to another, nothing seems right. We fret, we argue, we even end friendships over a difference of opinion, exemplifying the new normal. Even advertising nowadays has a look that ruffles feathers, and I don’t mean just those that...
For Better Recall and Grades, What Really Works: Hand-Written or Keyboarded Notes?
Devices rule. Students nowadays shuffle down crowded hallways, eyes glued to mobiles as they make their way to class and pile in, thumbs still tapping away. Settling in, they reach into bookbags, but, instead of a textbook and notebook, Chromebooks land on their...