A Principal's Reflections

AUGUST 25, 2024

Understanding our current position is like having a detailed map before embarking on a journey. Charting a course toward our desired destination can be difficult without knowing where we stand. This awareness allows us to identify our strengths, recognize the gaps, and make informed decisions about the steps we need to take. In both personal growth and organizational development, clarity about our starting point empowers us to set realistic goals, measure progress, and ultimately reach where we

Leadership 435

Leadership Cultures Teaching 435

The Hechinger Report

AUGUST 25, 2024

The other day, one of my students told me that she’d been assigned the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar for her high school English class. It was the first time I had encountered a high school English assignment involving an author with whom I was wholly unfamiliar. But can we even call rapper and songwriter Kendrick Lamar an author, his lyrics literature? Call me a snob, but I would argue that we cannot and should not, especially at a level so introductory to the English literary canon as high school.

High School 115

High School Tradition Critical Thinking History 115

Anthropology.net

AUGUST 25, 2024

A groundbreaking study of the Dolmen of Menga, a massive Neolithic stone monument located in southern Spain, has unveiled remarkable evidence of the advanced engineering and scientific understanding possessed by its builders nearly 6,000 years ago. This research, recently published 1 in Science Advances , highlights the technological abilities of the early farmers and herders who constructed the dolmen, suggesting that they had a sophisticated grasp of physics, geometry, geology, and architectur

Humanities 75

Humanities History Cultures Research 75

Moler's Musing

AUGUST 25, 2024

Last week I gave a Literacy Skills entry assessment. I used AI to analyze the results… The literacy skills analysis reveals that 8th grade students need to improve in several key areas. Finding the Main Idea remains a challenge, with students struggling to consistently identify central themes across texts. Understanding Vocabulary in Context shows fair performance, but there’s room for improvement in deriving word meanings from context.

Social Studies 71

Social Studies 71

Pedagogy and Formation

AUGUST 25, 2024

The Winners & Honour Books Younger Readers ( Ages 0-6 Years) Voting has been completed and winners in all categories announced for younger readers. As always there were SO many great books. Glad I'm not a judge this year! I should point out that this year we have the appointed judges of the awards, and for some reason there a group of 'Appointed Judges' also suggest winners.

Humanities 52

Humanities 52

Leah Cleary

AUGUST 25, 2024

For the past few weeks, we’ve been scaffolding our way through smart strategies for secondary literacy. We’ve been using the gradual release of responsibility model to ensure that we’re building a solid foundation in literacy. This week, we’re going to discuss how to teach essay writing in three steps. We’ve already discussed preparing students to write essays with sentence-level practice and paragraph-level practice.

Teaching 52

Teaching Library 52

C3 Teachers

AUGUST 25, 2024

Student engagement is the cornerstone of effective teaching, particularly in inquiry-based classrooms where curiosity and critical thinking take center stage. The principles of inquiry tell us that the more students are invested in exploring big ideas through meaningful conversations, the more authentic their learning experiences become. Successful inquiry thrives on this engagement.

Critical Thinking 52

Critical Thinking Tradition Cultures Teaching 52

C3 Teachers

AUGUST 25, 2024

Student engagement is the cornerstone of effective teaching, particularly in inquiry-based classrooms where curiosity and critical thinking take center stage. The principles of inquiry tell us that the more students are invested in exploring big ideas through meaningful conversations, the more authentic their learning experiences become. Successful inquiry thrives on this engagement.

Critical Thinking 40

Critical Thinking Tradition Cultures Teaching 40

Diane Ravitch

AUGUST 25, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson describes the Democratic National Convention and Kamala Harris offering a vision of community, of neighbors helping neighbors, of government removing barriers to opportunity and lifting up those who need help. She notes that the party has gone beyond identity politics: Harris did not mention her race or gender even as her nomination was history-making because of her race and gender.

Government 90

Government Economics Tradition History 90