After this pandemic is over with (or at least sufficiently in the background of American life to warrant little comment), plan to go into a classroom and ask yourself, does this classroom have life?” That’s the key test of whether there’s any real learning going on. There could be fake learning going on, to be...Read More

First, my complaint:  I don’t like the direction that reading instruction has taken in this country, moving as it has toward lock-step teaching of phonemic awareness, incessant teaching of reading comprehension ”skills” (e.g. finding the main idea, making inferences etc.), and ”close reading” strategies (where the child is restricted to just what is in the...Read More

Over 80% of schoolchildren are involved with distance learning through their schools according to a recent poll by the Gallup organization. Another 16% are doing online learning not specifically tied to their schools.  Since this is such a shift from what things were like when most kids went to school, we have to ask ourselves...Read More

The fact that music even exists is one of the marvelous things about being alive.  And Harvard professor Howard Gardner said that music is actually an intelligence.  However, in school, music is the first program to be cut out of the budget if there’s a financial crush, and many kids get to take music only two...Read More

With kids doing so much of their learning at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, it becomes very important to make sure that their personal study area in the home is especially conducive to study and concentration.  Here are five tips for putting together an optimal learning environment for your teen (or child).  Naturally, there are...Read More