Category: Education

Much attention in the post-pandemic era has been on what students have lost – days of school, psychological health, knowledge and skills. But now we have evidence that they may also have gained something: schools that address more of their needs. A majority of public schools have begun providing services that are far afield from traditional academics, including health care, housing assistance, childcare and food aid.
In a Department of Education survey released in October 2023 of more than 1,300 public schools, 60% said they were partnering with community organizations to provide non-educational services. That’s up from 45% a year earlier in 2022, the first time the department surveyed schools about their involvement in these services. They include access to medical, dental and mental health providers as well as social workers. Adult education is also often part of the package; the extras are not just for kids.
“It is a shift,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at G..

Much attention in the post-pandemic era has been on what students have lost – days of school, psychological health, knowledge and skills. But now we have evidence that they may also have gained something: schools that address more of their needs. A majority of public schools have begun providing services that are far afield from traditional academics, including health care, housing assistance, childcare and food aid.
In a Department of Education survey released in October 2023 of more than 1,300 public schools, 60% said they were partnering with community organizations to provide non-educational services. That’s up from 45% a year earlier in 2022, the first time the department surveyed schools about their involvement in these services. They include access to medical, dental and mental health providers as well as social workers. Adult education is also often part of the package; the extras are not just for kids.
“It is a shift,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at G..

Enunciated syllables, slow speech and spelling — these are the adjustments some students find themselves making as they introduce themselves to their teachers each school year. For these students, whose names might be misspelled in emails or autocorrected in text messages, this annual ritual carries significance. It often determines what they will be called for the entire school year. “This is a matter children feel strongly about, yet adults aren’t always as attentive to,” said elementary school teacher Jennifer Orr. According to a 2011 study, daily mispronunciations of names are microaggressions that can significantly affect students’ self-perception and sense of belonging.
Names are one of the topics covered in We’re Gonna Keep on Talking, which Orr co-authored with Philadelphia educator Matthew R. Kay. The book guides educators through how to foster meaningful conversations about race with elementary school students. The names unit, which Orr has done about five times over the las..

This post was originally published by Parenting Translator. Sign up for the newsletter and follow Parenting Translator on Instagram.
Recently there has been a movement on social media and the parenting community more broadly to practice “gentle parenting.” The exact definition of gentle parenting is not completely clear because it is not a term that has been studied in the research or used by psychologists in clinical practice. The term gentle parenting is credited to British author, Sarah Ockwell-Smith, who wrote several books on the topic. Gentle parenting has since become a buzzword and been co-opted by countless parenting influencers on social media.
Reassuringly though, most conceptualizations of gentle parenting seem to be based on principles that nearly every child psychologist or expert in child development would endorse such as respecting the child, taking the child’s perspective into account, empathizing with and validating your child and building the parent-child bond thr..

Young students around the world struggle to memorize multiplication tables, but the effort pays off. Cognitive scientists say that learning 6 x 7 and 8 x 9 by heart frees up the brain’s working memory so that students can focus on the more demanding aspects of problem solving.
Math teachers debate the best way to make multiplication automatic. Some educators argue against drills and say fluency will develop with everyday usage. Others insist that schools should devote time to helping children memorize times tables.
Even among proponents of memorization, it’s unclear which methods are the most effective. Should kids draw their own color-coded tables and study them, or copy their multiplication facts out dozens of times? Should they play multiplication songs and videos? Should they learn mnemonic tricks, like how the digits of the multiples of nine add up to nine (1+8, 2+7, 3+6, etc.)? My daughter’s gym teacher used to make students shout “7 x 5 is 35” and “6 x 8 is 48” as they did j..

Excerpted from “MIDDLE SCHOOL SUPERPOWERS: Raising Resilient Tweens in Turbulent Times by Phyllis L. Fagell.” Copyright © 2023. Available from Hachette Go, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Challenge distorted thinking Tweens think they wouldn’t lie to themselves, but they do. They can catastrophize, think in all-or-nothing terms, jump to conclusions, overgeneralize, discount the positive, or blame themselves or others when something goes wrong, to name a few common thinking errors. For instance, if ten people tell a kid that they love their haircut, but one person says, “I see you got a haircut,” they might spend the rest of the day trying to decipher the one ambiguous comment. If a teacher changes a kid’s seat because they’re disruptive, the kid might conclude that the relationship is irreparably damaged. Or if they bomb a history test, they might think, “I suck at history and the teacher clearly hates me, so what’s the point?” That kind of defeatist, unproductive thinking ser..

On a February morning in 2012, Jazzi Goode, an elementary and middle school STEM educator in North Carolina, was having a hard time getting ready for work. With a closet that seemed devoid of suitable school attire, she surveyed her options: sweatshirts, button downs and lots of jeans. Rather than resigning herself to the ordinary, Goode was struck by an idea that would transform her approach to teaching. “I should dress up as Rosa Parks today,” she thought.
Goode put on a button down white shirt, a gray skirt and even a makeshift “prison tag” number to step into the persona of the iconic civil rights activist. After seeing how her spontaneous decision delighted her students, who listened attentively as they read books and learned about Parks’ role in history, Goode started to dress up as prominent figures more often. “It became an everyday thing,” said Goode, who transitioned out of the classroom to work at an education nonprofit this year. “I started to put more energy into it the ..

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Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health concern in children. The rates of children with anxiety have been growing dramatically. In 2021, a meta-analysis (translation: a study that combines data from all previous studies) found that 20.5% of children worldwide have symptoms of anxiety.
This post will help parents address many of your common questions on anxiety, including:
How do you know if your child has anxiety? What are the common anxiety disorders in children? Is your child’s anxiety your “fault” as a parent? What can you do to help your child? When and how should you seek professional help for your child? How do you know if your child has anxiety? It is very normal for children to have fears that seem irrational or out of proportion to the danger actually posed, such as being afraid of the dark or worried about their parents leaving. H..

This opinion column about outdoor play temperature guidelines was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
Dora Ramos is a family child care provider in Stamford, Connecticut, where the temperature climbed above 90 degrees for a few days in July. She takes care of children in her home, which has a large backyard, and was able to adapt, still getting the children outside, even on the hottest days.
“Our parents bring the children at 7:10 a.m., so we bring them outside very early — first thing,” she said. “We have sprinklers; they use the hose to fill up pots with water and ‘cook.’”
But in Dallas, where the high hit 110 degrees on August 18, it wasn’t safe or possible to play outside for weeks-long stretches this summer, said Cori Berg, the director of Hope Day School, a preschool there. “It was cranky weather for sure,” she said. “What most people don’t really t..

Middle school. For teens, tweens, and their parents, the two words can evoke heavy doses of anxiety, fear, even horror.
Kids are, all of sudden, really growing up. Their bodies are changing in unexpected ways; they’re shedding some of their childhood interests and styles, and trying on new ones, for better and — sometimes — for worse. Friendships form, are torn apart, recalibrate. Crushes abound. In the classroom, academic expectations amplify.
But some books — like the new graphic novel, Curlfriends: New In Town, the first volume in a debut young adult series written and drawn by author and artist Sharee Miller — remind us of the many possibilities and excitements interwoven within those challenging years.
The book follows 12-year-old Charlie Harper, beginning around her first day of middle school, which she transfers into three weeks after the year has started. Charlie has spent most of her young life abroad, moving from school to school as her family followed her father’s job in ..