My teaching bag of tricks is full of stories, lots of stories— biographies that are a window into history, stories to teach the alphabet, stories that break down the complexity of a math process and metaphoric stories such as parables and fables that spark thinking.
My students are used to stories that take them on a journey that appears to bring them far away from our main theme, into a tale that is not so much a segue as a secret route to the heart of the topic. Continue reading
Some of these things could end up being a service to young people, if only someone would just tell them. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
To maintain order in the classroom — and to keep their jobs — there are some things teachers just can’t tell their students, even if they want to, but some of these things, while perhaps controversial, could end up being a service to young people, if only someone would just tell them. Continue reading
There is a story many years ago of an elementary teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson. And as she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.
Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn’t play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant.
It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big F at the top of his papers. Continue reading
I followed his astounded gaze back to the high window ledge. The pod had burst wide open into a cumulous, pulsating mass. The slight breeze from the other window tickled the fluff, coaxing bits of down into the air. Suddenly the room was clouded with milkweed down.
Then something happened, something that would happen again and again over my six years with my class, something of gigantic importance, yet imperceptible…. It was a simple, silent shift in the manner of the class prompted by a decision on my part to step back and allow the children to lead the way. I made no pronouncement. My turning the reins over to the class was a silent passing of leadership. Continue reading
We all know Aesop’s fable about the Tortoise and the Hare but few of us really believe, in the real world, that slowcoaches like the tortoise have a cat in hell’s chance of beating those in life’s fast lane. Few really believe, with John Milton, that “they also serve who only stand and wait.” Those who stand and wait get left behind, stupid. You snooze, you lose.
Those of us who believe that time taken is time well spent are in a minority in our frantic and frenetic world. We are an endangered species. Continue reading
Photo: Adrees Latif – Reuters
Scattered around a meeting room in groups of three or four, 13 women bent over laptop computers and smartphones, squinting at Colorado’s hundreds of child-care regulations.
They were child-care and preschool employees from all over Denver on a scavenger hunt of sorts, searching for answers to worksheet questions such as how quickly child-care workers must be trained on child-abuse reporting and which eight kinds of toys and equipment classrooms are required to have. Continue reading
In an article titled “The iPad is a Far Bigger Threat to Children Than Anyone Realizes,” psychologist Sue Palmer explains the long-term neurological and biological impacts of repeatedly plugging your toddler in front of an iPad for hours on end: Continue reading
Reesa was lost in golden October. Shining maple trees bridged the concrete walk down the gentle hill. Brown-gold fallen leaves carpeted the hillside. Bright gold leaves floated toward this mottled carpet where, upon landing, they glittered like brilliant stars.
Alone in this golden splendor, Reesa seemed unaware that she should be with her classmates. Tall, slender, and light on her feet, she danced gleefully from falling leaf to falling leaf, catching a dazzling yellow bouquet of falling stars… Continue reading
A note from the publisher…
The short two paragraphs which you are about to read – I sincerely hope that you will make a commitment – for your children, your grandchildren and for the future direction of the Republic in which we live. What Kim Allsup presents – IS the ANSWER to the problems which we all share in this nation. As one who served our Nation in the military both in Europe and Viet Nam, and one who has continued to serve for nearly two decades on-the-air – I implore you to make a pledge and contribution to this amazingly worthwhile project. I will be doing so as well.
Thank you for your consideration in assisting Kim Allsup with this important project.
~ Jeffrey Bennett
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Here is a great lesson here that the students at Little Rock High School will never forget. I would presume also that most students would never have given this a thought.
In September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a History teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks in her classroom.
When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.
‘Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?’
She replied, ‘You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.’ Continue reading
You can’t put wonder in your lesson plan any more than you could plan for a sunny sky. But, while the weather is totally beyond our control, you can put out solar panels to catch the sun when it shines and teachers and parents can, similarly, prepare to catch wonder when it happens.
We can create habits in our classes so they know instinctively when we have pulled back to allow them to express their fascination. We can give unplanned time for student questions when they arise, can listen for the turn of conversation or the moment on a field trip where a child stops and looks with wide-eyed awe. Parents too can postpone bed time or mowing the lawn when they notice that one of those moments is arriving unexpectedly.
My book, A Gift of Wonder, A True Story About School As It Should Be is about those moments. You can pre-order your copy through by clicking HERE and choosing the secret perk at the top of the page. This is a special offer for readers of the Growing Children blog. Continue reading
“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.” ~ George Lucas
Let’s dream about public schools of the future where children are motivated by wonder, curiosity and compassion rather than the wish to do well on tests. My book, A Gift of Wonder, A True Story Showing School As It Should Be, is both a true story about a school that works and a window into the future of education.
(Click here to order your copy of A Gift of Wonder)
Kim Allsup ~ June 14, 2017
After conducting a multi-center, phase-3, double-blind, placebo controlled, independently reviewed study, encompassing 39 countries, various undersea kingdoms, and the moon, I’ve concluded that the best reason parents shouldn’t home-school their children is:
They can’t.
They can’t, because the public education they received was so wan and thin and bereft of substance, they’re unfit to teach.
For those parents who did receive a decent education, and who can handle the schedule, home schooling is a rational decision.
At minimum, it removes them and their kids from a system designed to impart values, values that should be taught at home.
Sex. Politics. Mental health. Vaccination. Gender. Contraception. Abortion. Diversity. These are a few issues schools now consider “public.” Schools become society’s parents. It takes a village. Their kind of village. They run it. They own it. “For the children.” Continue reading
(During the week of May 5, 2017) It was National Charter Schools Week, and parents, students, teachers, and community members across the nation are celebrating the success of their independent schools.
Charters are technically public schools, since they’re publicly funded, tuition-free, and open to all students, but they’re privately managed and held to higher accountability standards than traditional public schools in exchange for increased flexibility in other areas. Continue reading
~ Forewords ~
I have complained about the total LACK of the public schools to teach CIVICS to high schoolers. Learned tonight that it stopped in the 1970’s. I took Civics when I was in the 9th grade and that helped to add to the classes I had in the 8th grade -studying the Constitution – another long forgotten class in today’s schools. It is no wonder we have snowflakes that only understand how to PROTEST and DESTROY Property of others.
They expect everyone to provide for them as being self supporting via a productive job is something they have never been taught…. or know how to do. ~ Jackie Juntti
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Here’s a pop quiz for all you students at every level. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in school today or if you’re simply a student of life (as we all should be until we die). Since Jimmy Carter brought us the Department of Education, what has been the positive impact it’s had on our students, teachers, parents, or communities?
It’s somewhat of a trick question because no matter what positive impact you recall hearing about or seeing on Wikipedia, there are more negatives that have come out of every action the department has taken and every decree they’ve made. I won’t bore you with statistics or point to individual instances of complete failure to improve the quality or efficiency of education in America. Either you see the clear dysfunction in our schools today or you don’t. Nothing I say will change your mind. Continue reading
A growing number of states are realizing the importance of teaching high school students the nation’s founding documents after schools have ignored them for years.
Kentucky and Arkansas have become the latest of more than a dozen states requiring high school social studies curricula to include material covered by the 100 questions asked on the naturalization exam, which includes questions about U.S. history, civics, and government.
“I hope this is a wake-up call,” says attorney John Whitehead, president of Rutherford Institute. “I talk to people who graduate from law school in my summer intern program, and they can’t even give me the five freedoms in the First Amendment.” Continue reading
Stephen Litt has been conducting science experiments since he was in first grade. Every year, the projects became more and more complicated — until finally, as a 7th grader, he came across something that gained national attention.
The 12-year-old boy from Marietta, Georgia, discovered evidence that chemicals in green tea may have cancer-fighting potential.
For this year’s science fair project, he tested epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), an antioxidant in green tea, to determine whether it could prevent breast cancer tumors in planaria, a type of flatworms.
The research, which was part of his award-winning project for the Georgia Science and Engineering Fair, earned the boy praise from scientists across the country. He was even invited to go on a private tour of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University while on spring break in Boston two weeks ago. (Follow the complete story… )