594. Norks and Noogly

Sometimes a child has difficulty doing what’s supposed to be done in school. Ideally, the child, the child’s parent(s), and school personnel work together to figure out what the difficulty is and what can be done about it. Then the child is given timely and effective help, and what was difficult gets easier. This scenario…

When I was a child, my parents unknowingly hired a bunch of teachers for me and my siblings. These teachers had never worked in schools, and didn’t know much about child development or curriculum. They were great at classroom management; in fact, we were spellbound, hanging on their every word. My two favorites were Popeye…

I just had a talk with my father. I told him about this book, and he suggested that I write an article about history. I belong to a generation that wasn’t going to trust anyone over thirty, but we changed our minds about fifteen years ago. So I’ll write about history, but not because my…

It will never cease to amaze me how well children can sometimes teach children things that we adults have to figure out how to teach. I’m pretty sure I understand why – it’s easier to help someone follow a path if you’ve just followed it yourself. You know which shortcuts work and which ones lead…

There was a list of required and suggested books for introductory education courses at Beloit College when I started taking such courses. Heading the list were such titles as How Children Fail (by John Holt), Crisis in the Classroom (by Charles Silverman), and Death at an Early Age (by Jonathan Kozol). These titles alone were…

A friend of mine once took issue with the statement, “Nobody said life would be easy.” She distinctly remembers getting the impression that it would. Maybe adults don’t come right out and tell children that life is going to be easy, but they aren’t always completely honest about how hard it can be, and some…