Talk about driving a hard bargain:
Click on the link to read Kids as Young as 1 Exposed to 4 Hours of Background Television a Day
Click on the link to read Letting Kids Take Risks is Healthy for Them
Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All
Courtesy of the brilliant photographer Julian Germain and brainpickings.org:
Brazil, Belo Horizonte, Series 6, Mathematics
Taiwan, Ruei Fang Township, Kindergarten, Art
St. Petersburg, Russia. Year 2, Russian
Tokyo, Japan, Grade 5, Classical Japanese
Lagos, Nigeria. Basic 7 / Junior Secondary Level 1, Mathematics
Qatar, Grade 8, English
Bahrain, Saar, Grade 11, Islamic
Peru, Cusco, Primary Grade 4, Mathematics
More portraits can be found by following the link above.
Click on the link to read Top Ten Funny Excuses For Being Late To School
Click on the link to read 7 Tips for Transforming Your Classroom
Click on the link to read 2 Kids Outsmart 3 Robbers
Click on the link to read the 100 Skills Parents Should Teach Their Children
Is this man a gold digger or is his experiences emblematic of a culture where kids physically harm teachers with little recourse?:
Prepare for a story that gets stranger the more you read: A first-grade teacher was beaten up by one of his 6-year-old students, humiliating him so much that he sought professional therapy to cope with the incident’s aftermath.
“It’s sort of like an angel-devil sort of thing,” said Webster of his violent first-grade student, Carpio. “[Rodrigo] looks like an angel, but then, all of a sudden, that halo turns into horns. It’s been a nightmare. It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating.”
Webster suffered a fractured ankle and injured knee in an incident that he says also resulted in the kicking and pinching of the school’s principal, a security officer and another teacher. Webster was apparently so shaken by the incident that he consulted with a psychiatrist to cope with the stress, and has now filed a lawsuit against the city over his injuries.
Carpio’s parents have scoffed at Webster’s intent to0 file suit. His father told the NY Post that the lawsuit “is totally absurd. How could my little boy do so much damage? My poor son.”
Click here to read ‘The Overwhelming Responsibilities of the Modern Teacher’
JK Rowling deserves a bit of slack for this latest controversy. Whilst the reference to a ‘mustachioed’ girl is regrettable, Rowling has done amazing things for children with glasses and scars and has inspired orphans to rise above their situation:
Now it appears the book, called The Casual Vacancy, has also angered religious leaders in India because of its portrayal of a Sikh girl as ‘mustachioed, yet large-mammaried.’
The book, about social tensions in a small village in South West England, features a Sikh family, including female student Sukhvinder.
One of the characters, Fats, describes Sukhvinder, his classmate, as ‘mustachioed, yet large-mammaried’, adding that ‘scientists remain baffled by the contradictions of the hairy man-woman’.
Sikh believers are forbidden from shaving or trimming their hair, and the passage was condemned by India’s Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which manages places of worship in India.
Sikh leaders are now closely scrutinising the novel with a view to having the offending passages removed from Indian editions.
SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar described Miss Rowling’s choice of words as ‘a slur on the Sikh community’, adding: ‘Even if the author had chosen to describe the female Sikh character’s physical traits, there was no need for her to use provocative language, questioning her gender. This is condemnable.’
He added: ‘If anything is written against the Sikh maryada (dignity), we will write to [India’s] prime minister Manmohan Singh and urge him to take up the matter with the government in the United Kingdom for action against Rowling.
Click on the link to read Charity Pays for Teen’s Plastic Surgery to Help Stop Bullying
Click on the link to read From 0 to 100 in 150 Seconds
Click on the link to read It’s Time to Get New Role Models
Courtesy of esteemed educator and blogger David Truss:
Inquiry based learning is a key tenet of the Inquiry Hub. When students get to choose their own topics, with guidance and support from their teachers, peers and community members, these learners will produce thoughtful, rich and compelling answers.
By helping students connect, create and learn together, we will encourage them to look outside of their box and seek a world of potential.
* Transforming Classrooms with Inquiry: It starts with educators asking really good questions. There are a lot of resources on Inquiry Learning, here is a great list of resources to get teachers started. The Calgary Science School’s Exemplary Learning and Teaching posters are excellent examples of the resources shared in the list. Which of these resources will help you develop more inquiry based lessons?
When students explore their interests in-depth, they will often discover insights worth sharing with others. At the Inquiry Hub, we believe that an integral part of learning is the ability to share what you’ve learned with others in meaningful ways.
* Transforming Classrooms with Voice: Be it a presentation to a small group, the entire school, the local community or online (with the world), work with students to craft their message in thoughtful, well represented ways. How can you use recording devices, now available on almost every phone and on every computer, to get students prepared for presentations or to get students to share their work publicly?
An important skill to learn is how to ‘write to a specific audience’, and there is no better way to promote this than to give learners a legitimate audience for their work.
* Transforming Classrooms with Audience: Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios and social media tools, you can invite the world to be a participatory audience in the work that our students do. An Authentic Audience Matters! What can you do to increase the audience of your students’ work beyond the class or just you, their teacher?
Collaboration is a learned skill that is essential in today’s world. Our goal will be to have students collaborate on projects that matter, in many different communities.
* Transforming Classrooms with Community: Provide opportunities for projects to extend beyond age-group peers to include younger and/or older students, parents and teachers, community members, subject area experts, and students from around the globe. Who do you know in your community (or your online network) that can share their expertise with your students?
“In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers.” ~Peter Senge
At the Inquiry Hub, students will be provided with many opportunities to be designers, stewards and teachers. We believe that every student has the potential to lead!
* Transforming Classrooms with Leadership: Buddy up with students in younger classes. Create activities and events which truly allow students to ‘run the show’. Here is a resource I developed for teaching leadership and developing a school-wide leadership program. How can you create more authentic leadership opportunities for your students in your class?
We can learn a lot from (and within) play. Play promotes discovery and invites the idea that we can have fun learning, even from our mistakes. From the MIT Media Lab’s advocation of ‘Lifelong Kindergarten‘ to Google’s promotion of employees getting 20% of their work week dedicated to personal-interest projects, it is quickly becoming apparent that ingenuity and creativity are both sparked from an environment that incorporates play into learning.
* Transforming Classrooms with Play: There is a lot of pedagogy in play (at all ages). Do we provide “gaps” in our teaching? Time and spaces where students can be creative beyond the scope of the content we are teaching? Watch this interesting slide show, think about how ‘Game design’ invites creative play, and question how you can embed some of these ideas into your lessons?
A key principle in the new learning theory, Connectivism, considers networks to be a central metaphor for learning. The theory suggests that ‘learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions’. The COL Inquiry Hub will use a hybrid model that blends classroom, community and online experiences, and so students will be exposed to a multitude of learning networks.
* Transforming Classrooms with Networks: Skype is a great tool to bring classes from across the country or across the globe together. Who can you connect your class with, and what tools can you use, beyond Skype, to connect the learning that’s happening in other physical and digital learning spaces?
For more wonderful material and advice from David Truss please follow this link.
Click on the link to read Top Ten Funny Excuses For Being Late To School
Click on the link to read Why Spelling is Important
Click on the link to read 2 Kids Outsmart 3 Robbers
Click on the link to read the 100 Skills Parents Should Teach Their Children
A recent study suggests that we forget about getting overweight children to engage in physical activity and instead focus on healthier eating.
Eating less, not forcing children to do more exercise is the key to combating the childhood obesity crisis, experts have said, as a study shows youngsters compensate by becoming more idle at other times.
A major review of research into childhood exercise programmes has found that enforcing extra activity on children does not affect how active they are overall, as they simply do less at other times of the day.
This means that extra exercise programmes will not reduce the childhood obesity crisis and policies should focus on what children eat instead, experts said.
There are no quick fixes to losing weight. Enrolling your children into an extra-curricular sporting activity may be a good start, but it is unlikely to be sufficient. Physical activity doesn’t just involve football practice, it also involves spending less time in front of a screen and more time in the fresh air. It encourage children to walk to the local shops or library instead of depending on a lift.
The key to any life changing decision is balance and common sense. A change of diet might be paramount to weight loss but other factors should not be ignored.
Click on the link to read my post School Weigh-ins Are an Insult Rather Than a Solution
Click here to read my post ‘Considered Too Obese to Keep His Kids‘.
Click on the link to read Charity Pays for Teen’s Plastic Surgery to Help Stop Bullying
Click on the link to read my post, ‘Sparing Young Children the Affliction of Body Image‘.
In the age of over regulation and OH&S interference it’s important to be reminded that taking risks can be beneficial for children:
ALLOWING children to take risks increases their resilience and helps them make judgments.
The current “cotton wool” culture means many kids are not getting the chance to fully explore their world and learn essential life skills.
“Too many kids are playing it too safe, [creating] a marshmallow generation,” says child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg.
“If you restrict children from playing outside, you send a message that the world is a much more terrifying place than it is and you run the risk of making kids risk-averse,” he says.
“They will spend more time on the computer and being sedentary. Children ought to be taking risks and it is not the end of the world if a child has an accident.”
The need for kids to learn to take calculated risks in safe environments has been a fervent topic of discussion in the media following recent reports that a Sydney inner-suburban primary school had banned kids from doing cartwheels and handstands.
“Schools are scared parents would sue if children were injured,” Carr-Gregg says. “This play-paralysis means children no longer experience adventure.”
Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting
Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids
Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All
A number of readers have disagreed with, my stance on the Jeremy Forrest/Megan Stammers relationship. They believe that a 15-year old girl should be able to decide who she wants to form a relationship with and be able to act on those impulses in any way she chooses. Likewise, they believe that while it is not ideal for a teacher to be having a relationship with a student, he should be treated leniently, because one should not be punished for falling in love.
I disagree slightly with the first contention and vehemently with the second.
Lawmakers have to use generalisations when considering laws. Megan Stammers may be the most mature 15-year old on the planet, but the average 15-year old relies greatly on a parent/parents to fund their lifestyle, organise their daily events, counsel them during vulnerable times and help make important decisions in their life. As much as the public seems to enjoy a ‘love conquers all story’, a child of 15 is more likely than not going to be safer and better looked after by parents than a married math teacher double her age.
As for Jeremy Forrest, I feel that this is the time to let the public see loudly and clearly that teachers under no circumstances should be allowed to get involved with a student. The first thing a teacher who has designs on a student should do is resign immediately. The second thing he should do is to wait until that child is of legal age. There is a significant level of trust given to a teacher of children. This trust is slowly being eroded thanks to the daily news cycle of teachers who act without professionalism and integrity.
It is the task of the courts to determine whether or not Jeremy Forrest acted properly. If, as it seems, he didn’t, I hope the judge acts ruthlessly. It is time for our teachers to witness what happens when a fellow teacher abuses the trust that is handed to him in good faith.
A cute note by a young child on the subject of love:
Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting
Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids
Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All
One wonders why the teacher couldn’t have just picked out the offending food from the child’s hair:
A North Carolina mother is outraged after she said a teacher at her daughter’s school chopped some of the hair of the seven-year-old girl suffering from Down syndrome without parental consent.
Jesslyn Stirewalp adored her long, brown hair, gazing at her own reflection in the mirror and saying that her locks were ‘pretty.’
‘Most of the time, she’s always brushing her hair, always doing something with her hair,’ the girl’s mother, Jessica Stirewalp, said.
But all that apparently changed following an incident at Millbridge Elementary School last week.
‘She doesn’t even get in front of the mirror anymore,’ Jesslyn’s grandmother, Mary Poole, told the station WSOCTV.
However, when the girl returned home from school, Stirewalp said she was in for an even bigger shock.
‘Instead of four inches, it was more (like) eight inches. And when she walked in the house, you could tell that she thought she was in trouble,’ Stirewalp said. ‘I mean, it hurts my feelings, and I know it hurts her feelings.’
Click on the link to read Make an Example out of Jeremy Forrest
Click on the link to read School Allegedly Turned a Blind Eye to Peter Forrest’s Relationship with Schoolgirl
Click on the link to read Being a Teacher Makes Me Regret the Way I Treated My Teachers
Click on the link to read Useful Resources to Assist in Behavioural Management
Click on the link to read When Something Doesn’t Work – Try Again Until it Does
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