Educators are exhausted and under attack, and faculty and staff need school leaders to take their frontline challenges seriously, write Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn. The leadership authors detail seven steps principals can take to offer real help and support.
Student trauma is widespread in schools today. School psychologist Katelyn Oellerich explores several actions we can take to help alleviate its ill effects – from deliberate steps to strengthen adult-student relationships to systemwide planning to improve trauma support.
Close Reading the Media / Evaluating Media
by Frank Baker · Published 11/14/2021 · Last modified 11/17/2021
Students are constant targets of advertisers and influencers, writes author–consultant Frank Baker. Introduce kids to seven key media literacy questions that can boost their critical thinking skills and get them in the habit of always asking “What’s really going on?”
When co-teachers implement Honigsfeld and Dove’s collaborative instructional cycle – co-planning, co-assessing and co-reflecting – multilingual students and their fellow students benefit from the robust, dynamic instruction, writes language specialist Tan Huynh.
Community dissent is rising and schools are not immune. The dilemma for principals: conflicting demands from different groups of parents and other influencers. Ron Williamson and Barbara R. Blackburn offer 10 leadership strategies that can help lessen the impact of conflict.
Jayson Richardson keeps US public schools in mind as he describes a wide range of innovative practices across the global edu-sphere, writes world language educator Jane Swisher. Topics include student agency, equity, curriculum, management, teacher leadership and technology.
How should we teach US History? Is it mostly about caring? Or critical thinking? What about historical knowledge? Teacher Lauren Brown stands firm for content. “If we’ve learned anything from the culture wars this year it’s that too many Americans do not know their history.”
Using the strategies he shares here, ELA teacher and professional development author Jeremy Hyler has been able to reach more middle grades students and help them understand how they can power up their ability to communicate by learning grammar skills and code switching.
Using Historical Hypotheses, teachers never tell students what to think but instead “how to better think for themselves.” When students evaluate their own initial hypothesis and closely consider multiple viewpoints, they begin to develop a growth mindset, writes Jennifer Ingold.
Children are suffering more anxiety and depression, which many researchers attribute to overuse and misuse of personal devices and social media, writes author-educator Debbie Silver. Our response needs to focus not on scolding but on helping students become self-regulating.
