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

An article in the latest APA Monitor (the monthly news magazine of the American Psychological Association), reveals that budget cutbacks nationwide and a growing focus on academic learning, has resulted in fewer school psychologists being available to help children and adolescents with social, emotional, and behavioral problems.  The National Association for School Psychologists (NASP) recommends one school psychologist for...Read More

I think there should be a whole new movement in education called “children’s peak experiences in learning.” There ought to be books about it, M.Ed. and Ph.D. degree programs about it, tons of research about it.  Why?  Because when we observe learning at its best, only then do we have true benchmarks to evaluate the...Read More

Maybe you’ve reached a point where you consider your child/student (choose one or more):  unmotivated, lazy, spoiled, hyper, inept, bratty, inattentive, unmanageable, messy, distractible, beyond redemption.   Before you give up on your child, consider what the following parents and teachers felt about their own children and students: “This fat, little fellow goes around in a...Read More

Why is it that we expect children to sit quietly in their seats while they’re being taught in school?  We even use the word “seatwork” to describe this behavior.  I want to know who made this decision.  I can imagine some grizzled old scholar somewhere in Europe during the late eighteenth century thinking:  “You know, I really like...Read More