Human beings are supposed to respect each other, regardless of race, creed, gender, etc. Once, at a conference of people devoted to that respect, I got the feeling that respect for children was not part of the deal. People had their children with them, and though speaking with conviction about the rights of people around…
I once got sent to the principal’s office. I don’t remember what it was for, but I remember that I didn’t want to go there, I didn’t like being there, and after I’d experienced whatever happened there, I didn’t ever want to go back. And I never did go back, so whatever it was they…
I was talking with a first grader about shadows, and I mentioned Groundhog’s Day. He said he had seen it, and he liked it, but he didn’t understand why the guy kept trying to kill himself. Fortunately, I had seen the movie with Bill Murray. Unfortunately, the child had seen it. I tried to think…
When I first started teaching elementary school, a good friend of mine said the best way to teach reading was to give a child books that were interesting. I knew better. I knew that people had developed all kinds of sophisticated techniques to help children break the complicated code that was the English language. My…
My last article concerned children’s illness, and the issues children raised by getting sick when the time wasn’t right. I said there were no rules of thumb. Well, teachers get sick, too, and there aren’t any rules of thumb then, either. Let’s look into the mind of the teacher who wakes up feeling ill. “I…
You wake up. It looks like a good day. There’s a lot to do, but you’ve got it under control. If you drop the kids off at school a little early so you can beat the traffic and get to work early, you’ll get it done in time for that other thing you have to…
There’s something about the printed word that impresses people. When something is written well, and people read it, it’s a little harder to disagree with it than when it is spoken well. When a person speaks, you can watch facial expressions and body language. You can listen to the tone of voice. All your senses…
As I begin this article on divorce, I’m nervous. It’s an important subject. I know things about divorce from my own experience, from my adult friends’ experiences, and from my work with children. I got familiar with the effects on children of unhappy marriages and divorces well before I got familiar with their effects on…
When a child says no to a teacher, it raises an issue that we used to consider simple. In elementary school, I never said no to a teacher. I’m pretty sure I would have had trouble if I had. Occasionally, I witnessed what happened if a child said no to a teacher. It wasn’t a…
Everybody likes some people more than others. Even teachers. We’re human, too. Teachers, in fact, like some children more than others. Even the most egalitarian teachers, somewhere deep inside, have some favorite children, and some they don’t consider their favorites. A parent or child may have a hunch who the teacher likes or dislikes, but…