You’re child is a genius.  No, I don’t mean that your child is an Einstein or a Picasso or a Martha Graham.  I’m using the word ”genius” in its original meaning which relates to ”giving birth” (e.g. genesis) and ”bringing pleasure” (e.g. genial).  Thus, being a genius means giving birth to joy, and I believe...Read More

I received an email last week from someone who said his school had required him to buy a book that claimed Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences was a myth.  Naturally, as someone who has written and taught about this theory for the past thirty-four years, I was disturbed by this revelation.  To help set...Read More

Most educators are familiar with at least three different categories of assessments: Formative assessments – which are essentially ”on the fly” assessments that provide a snapshot of where students happen to be with respect to their on-going competence on a subject being assessed; these assessments have been increasingly used over the past two decades; Summative...Read More

A lot of recent research supports the systematic teaching of phonemic awareness in beginning reading programs.  The problem is that phonics lessons can get awfully dull, with teachers pointing to the letter and having kids say the sound, or students poring over phonics worksheets that ask them to match the right letter to the word,...Read More

Homework is considered to be part of the natural order of things in school.  But in the past twenty years or so there’s been an increasing amount of criticism about its function and use (see for example, Alfie Kohn’s The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing).  I too believe...Read More