609. Measuring

I rarely liked gym class as a child or adolescent. I remember dodge ball games, where I was supposed to try not to get hit with the ball. If (when) I did get hit, I usually got knocked over. I remember the trampoline, where I was supposed to rely on my sense of balance and…

Jonathan Kozol once coined the phrase “didagenic learning disabilities” – learning disabilities caused by ineffective teaching. He borrowed the concept from the medical world. An iatrogenic disease is one caused by a doctor. I think these terms can be useful. I don’t think people become teachers in order to prevent children from learning, but we…

Nelson was a boy who didn’t think much of himself. To underscore his poor self-image, he did things that bothered other people, and got them to back him up on his view of himself. Teachers in the teachers’ room referred to Nelson as “needy,” and he was needy, but “needy” is sometimes used as a…

Have you ever gone into an elementary school during the last few weeks of August? There may be teachers there. You probably won’t see the teacher who starts each school day a few minutes before children arrive and/or ends it by rushing out to the car to get out before the buses do. Those teachers…

I’ve already written an article about effort, but I realized, yesterday, that there’s a little more to the issue. A teacher asked me about a child with whom I’d been working. She said, “Do you think he’s trying?” My answer was, “That’s a complicated question. I think he’s trying to try, but I’m not sure…

Now that I’ve written about ignorance – about the importance of allowing and encouraging yourself and children to admit that they don’t know everything, let’s consider what you do know. There’s a lot of things you and children know – more every day, in fact. After years of learning, whether you’ve been doing it seven…