Children need to be heard. Caught up in the juggling acts of teaching, parenting, and/or myriads of other adult activities, we lose sight of that truth, or let it slip into a lower priority. From what I’ve seen and experienced, it’s often overshadowed by another truth: we adults need to be heard. It’s not something…
When you were a child, you saw your teacher teach. You knew, on some level, that your teacher did other things, too, but it probably wasn’t foremost in your mind. Your teacher was already in school when you got there, and stayed after you left, so you may have thought, at first, that she/he lived…
Margaret Mead described an aspect of Samoan culture that seemed downright utopian: growing up without adolescence. Children helped to raise their siblings, and the various traumas of pre-adolescence and adolescence didn’t happen. There was no niche in the culture for it. I caught a glimpse of that utopia when I saw “reading buddies” at work…
Most teachers, especially primary teachers, spend time teaching children about feelings. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, (Thank you, Abe Lincoln, for finding the right words) who are we to teach children about feelings? They haven’t had as much time to unlearn the important part…
Some parents decide that they don’t want their children to go to school, so they teach their children at home. Before school was invented, of course, it was neither a decision nor an issue. Where there are no schools, of course, it’s still neither. But when school is available and free, or at least affordable,…
I’ve always loved taking tests. They’re much easier than real life, for me, because there are right and wrong answers. If you get right answers, people think you must have something going for you. What they don’t know is that what I have going for me is quite simply that I love taking tests. I’ve…
I feel as if I ought to write an article about little league. I really want to spend most of the article comparing little league to children’s musical theatre, but perhaps that would be a little self-indulgent; I’m more of a thesbian than a jock. I’ll start with a little league moment I’ll never forget….
I think most children say a certain word that’s frowned upon. I think most adults do, too. I didn’t say it until my mid-thirties. I thought it was because I considered the word imprecise, overused, meaningless, and rude. Now, I think not using it made me feel superior, and feeling superior made me feel less…
There was a letter in the Amherst Bulletin, and I just had to answer it. Grouping of children in the schools here is a hot issue, and the person writing this letter asked for a teacher’s point of view on the subject. His last sentence was, “Are you listening?” Here’s the gist of my reply:…
I have some good news and some bad news about teaching children to behave ethically. The bad news is that the religions I’ve come in contact with (including my own) and the attempt to do it through school curriculum seem to do the job about as well as spelling programs make children good spellers. There…