Nothing has been more disconcerting to me in my forty-five years as an educator than to ask a parent or teacher:  ”What is your child’s (or teen’s) strengths?” and have them answer:  ”He hasn’t got any.”  I’ve actually heard this several times in my career.  It was such responses that motivated me to come up...Read More

I just received in my email box a link to a video made by the kids at Yealey Elementary School, in Florence, Kentucky, reviewing my new children’s book:  Smarts! Everybody’s Got Them. Intended for kids ages 5 to 9, the book presents Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences through pictures and words.  Each of the...Read More

Getting students’ attention in the classroom is one of the things that teachers have to do intermittently throughout the school day:  at the start of a class, at the end of an activity where students are working in groups, and at other times besides.  Some teachers are very good at this, commanding student attention through...Read More

I just read a very interesting article from EdSurge, an educational technology information online resource that focuses on the benefits of coding, describing how kids who have difficulty in other subjects can sometimes find hidden strengths in their ability to work with code.  The author Kimberly Rues, writes: ”In every classroom where I’ve given kids...Read More

When I was in school, a long long time ago (sounds like the start of a fairy tale!), we had these Science Research Associates (SRA) reading programs that came in a box.  The box contained scores of laminated pages (like the files in a filing cabinet), each of which had a story on it with...Read More