There are plenty of useful things a volunteer can do in a school. Plenty of things teachers would do if they only had the time, or things teachers do even though they don’t have the time. Being a teacher involves all kinds of work, and teachers really do appreciate having someone volunteer to do some…
Part of the job of planning a school year has to do with the physical arrangement of the classroom. It used to be simple; the desks were bolted down to the floor, and the classroom was going to look the same year after year. I’m not saying that was the best arrangement. I’m not even…
We spend lots of time and energy teaching children to use words, not hitting, to express themselves. Hitting children undoes a lot of that teaching. That’s not the only reason not to spank children, but it’s a pretty important reason. For many parents, not hitting children is quite a challenge. When parents remember being hit…
In a recent essay, I wrote about the fury I felt when my daughter played hooky. That fury was not typical of me, and I wish I could rewind to that time and tape over it (and then fast forward to now). My views on skipping school are close to the views of Mark Twain;…
I remember hating riding to school on the school bus. I tried to get a seat in the front, near the driver, but so did lots of people, so my odds weren’t very good. So pretty often, I sat in the back. The people who wanted to sit in the back knew that I was…
Have you ever gone into an elementary school during the last few weeks of August? There may be teachers there. You probably won’t see the teacher who starts each school day a few minutes before children arrive and/or ends it by rushing out to the car to get out before the buses do. Those teachers…
I just heard, on national public radio, that according to a recent study, spanking children increases the frequency of their misbehavior. It increases violence, lying, and a variety of other misbehaviors. The study also said that over 90% of the parents in this country do spank their children, and that over 90% of the adults…
Most people are pretty used to repeating what they’ve said if someone says, “What?”, “Huh?”, or more politely, “Excuse me?” They forgive listeners if it’s their fault that they didn’t hear, and they leave room for the possibility that the message wasn’t spoken clearly. It’s often simpler to just repeat a message than to make…
Teachers don’t know everything. I’ll bet you’ve already figured that out. Some teachers are embarrassed about not knowing everything, and try to hide their lack of omniscience. Some get angry when pupils or others challenge their statements. Whether they’re right or not, they want to be thought of as right. As a volunteer, I quickly…
As an elementary school teacher, I have always worked against sex role stereotyping. I grew up male, and for much of my life, most of my friends had grown up female. We all felt as if we’d been encouraged – sometimes forced – to fit stereotypes that didn’t feel right to us. I wanted to…