An old tale has it that a man visits a friend and wants to borrow his donkey for the day.  The friend tells him he’s sorry but he lent his donkey out.  The man leaves the house, but as he goes he hears the donkey braying in the back yard. He rushes back to the...Read More

This is a presentation I made at the 16th Encuentro Internacional de Educacion Inicial y Preescolar in Monterrey, Mexico on October 15th, 2016, which focused this year on inclusion and diversity.  The event was sponsored by an exemplary early childhood education program in Monterrey called CENDI (Los Centros de Desarrollo Infantil del Frente Popular “Tierra...Read More

Everyone knows that teens have a larger appetite for quick rewards than either adults or children.  But up until now scientists have been uncertain about whether this tendency had any beneficial impact. Some have argued, in fact, that this propensity is maladaptive insofar as adolescents’ engage in risky behavior (e.g. joyrides, drugs, sex) to get...Read More

The New York Times published an article today about a teacher at The Success Academy, a ”high achieving” school in New York City, who was observed abusing a young child verbally for getting confused on a math problem.  The article includes an accompanying video filmed surreptitiously by an assistant teacher. In the video, we see the teacher...Read More

The Common Core has made the learning of frequently used academic vocabulary words a top priority in their focus on creating standards in the public schools.   It follows then that finding just the right instructional strategies to teach these words is an important task for K-12 teachers.  Here is an 8-step strategic plan based...Read More