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...
Tech: Smartening Up or Dumbing Down Our Kids?
So, when folks talk about “the good old days,” I believe they mean, as Joan Abbott wrote, the generation… “Of Kids who did their homework alone to get out asap to play in the street. When kids spent all their free time in the streets with their friends. Of kids who...
Teaching Black History, Device-Free
Right off the bat: I'm Armenian—bless the Kardashians for giving the country name recognition—and fit the stereotype to a tee: olive skin, dark brown eyes and hair, and the proverbial big nose. Oh, old now and gray-haired. One summer, my family spent two weeks at...
Kids, Like Many Adults, Are in the Throes of a Mental Health Crisis
Though not a fan of the term trending, the state of Americans’ mental health is nothing short of a crisis and making for well-supported, above-the-fold headlines. Especially hard hit are young people who have paid a hefty price for COVID safety’s sake. Take for...
8 Steps to Improve Kids’ Writing
“The younger I was, the less I wanted to revise. Kids typically have the same taste for revisions as they do veggies. ~ Paul Fleishman, Newbury winner Correct wording, sentence structure, verb tense, spelling, comma usage, and on and on… Grammar and punctuation are...
In 2022, Resolve To…
Tyler Perry had it right when he said, “Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.” Share it, promote it, and model it every day by being reliable, cooperative,...
Thoughts for a Christmas Morning
"Random acts of kindness are those little sweet or grand lovely things we do for no reason except that, momentarily, the best of our humanity has sprung, exquisitely, into full bloom... You are doing what the best of your human soul invites you to do... In giving...
Young People’s Views and Plans, 2021 and Beyond
Mary Martin’s Peter Pan sang about perpetual youth, boldly shouting, “I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up. Not me! Not I!” seemingly speaking for our kids today. Makes one wonder: “Will they ever grow up?” Adulting actually became Grammar Girl’s 2014 Word...