I have a new article on the site MiddleWeb, which focuses on the importance of understanding recent brain research and how it can inform the creation of ”brain friendly” practices for young adolescents.  I was a junior high school teacher, a professor of courses in childhood and adolescent development, and a consultant to middle schools,...Read More

This is a blog post that appeared on ASCD’s InService blog, April 19, 2017.  It talks about an article I wrote for the April, 2017 issue of Educational Leadership entitled Neurodiversity:  The Future of Special Education? ”I was a special education teacher for several years back in the 1970s and 1980s.  Although I’d been trained at...Read More

I’ve been concerned about the lack of input that children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD have relating to their diagnosis and treatment.  Now a new study in the May 2017 issue of the Community Mental Health Journal reports that children with a diagnosis of ADHD want to talk with their doctors about their diagnosis and the...Read More

A study in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry last month reported that”extended use of medication [for ADHD] was associated with suppression of adult height but not with reduction of symptom severity.” So basically, it stunts growth and it isn’t effective. So why isn’t there a bigger hue and cry about this? There are...Read More

An opinion piece in yesterday’s New York Times really made a deep impression on me as an educator. It was written by Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, and entitled:  ‘‘Books Can Take You Places Donald Trump Doesn’t Want You to Go.”  Mattar writes about how books can help us ”stumble upon ourselves in the lives and...Read More