In an Education Week article entitled “Studies Link Students’ Boredom to Stress,” Ulrike E. Nett, a student motivation researcher at the University of Konstanz, Germany, is quoted as saying: “Although teachers try to create interesting lessons, they must be aware that despite their best intentions, some students may still perceive interesting lessons as boring….What is imperative...Read More
For almost two decades now, I’ve been criticizing the diagnosis of ADHD and the use of Ritalin and other psychostimulants with children (see, for example, my book The Myth of the ADD Child). Now, a new report in The New York Times today, says that physicians are starting to prescribe these drugs to poor children...Read More
The Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded today to two researchers who made landmark discoveries in cell biology. According to The New York Times, one of the researchers, John B. Gurdon of Cambridge University, was originally discouraged from becoming a scientist by his high school biology teacher. The teacher wrote: “I believe Gurdon has ideas about becoming...Read More
We’re headed for a sea change when it comes to neurological disabilities in the workplace. Up until now, the model most often used has been deficit-oriented: people with neurological disabilities lack normal functioning; they need extra help in order to become effective employees. However, a new paradigm is emerging that turns this model on its head. Now...Read More
Here are some quotations that I’ve collected over the years about the amazing genius of children. “The real magic wand is the child’s own mind.” – Jose Ortega Y Gasset (Spanish philosopher) “The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.” – Mencius (Chinese sage) “No Columbus, no Marco Polo has ever seen stranger and...Read More
Here’s a little multiple choice quiz: When we come to the end of life, what is it that we are most likely to regret? Is it: a) ”I wish that I had spent more time answering my email” b). ”I wish I had spent more time texting.” c) ”I wish I had spent more time...Read More
There’s a compelling article online at The Atlantic, on David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core State Standards, the “national curriculum” that most of the states in the country will be following in 2014-15. Coleman has impeccable credentials: Yale, Rhodes Scholarship, Oxford, a man of letters whose conversation, as the piece states, ”leaps gracefully from Plato to Henry...Read More
The October, 2012 issue of Educational Leadership, the flagship journal of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), in an issue dedicated to “Students Who Challenge Us,” features my article “First, Discover Their Strengths,” which highlights many of the ideas discussed in my forthcoming book Neurodiversity in the Classroom: Strength-Based Strategies to Help Students with Special Needs...Read More
I am sickened by a news report from Reuters on the rapid rise in the use of standardized testing at the kindergarten level. The push for academic accountability in the higher grades has been essentially pushed downwards through the grade levels and now sits like a 10-ton block of steel on what used to be literally a “children’s garden”...Read More
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