From the desk of Carol C…
“Don’t kick that wall again!”
“Why can’t you walk in a line without talking?”
“What is it about ‘clean up your room’ that you don’t understand?”
“You don’t even try.”
Anybody who has dealt with children of any age will recognize the statements above or something like them. We’ve all asked rhetorical questions, been critical/sarcastic, and overused the word “don’t” with children. Really it’s no wonder we keep …
From the desk of Carol C…
You have the opportunity to go to Hawaii, and everything for you is free. Would you take it? What about Paris, London, Rome, or southern Germany free of charge? Pearl Harbor, the Louvre, Tower of London, or Bavaria. Of course you would. It would be the opportunity of a lifetime. You would explore part of the world, learn about a different culture, and grab some time at the beach. …
From the desk of Alice…
“Gentlemen, you are the top 1% of all naval aviators — the elite, the BEST of the best. We’ll make you better. Fly at least two combat missions a day, attend classes in between, and evaluations of your performance. Now in each combat sequence you’re going to meet a different challenge. Every encounter is going to be much more difficult. We’re going to teach you to fly the F-14 right …
From the desk of Carol C….
I was hoping for warm weather. I was ready for it. After all it was spring break. Instead, the weather was cold. It snowed. All was not right with my world. Then late in the week I noticed daffodils sprouting, tulips blooming, and iris stalks peeking through the dirt. Spring had begun to poke its head up through the ground. My world suddenly smelled sweeter.
Coming back to work …
From the desk of Alice…
After the Newtown shootings in December I kept thinking I would find some words to put in a blog. The words never came.
After Monday’s tragedy in Boston, I just couldn’t land on any other blog that seemed to say the right thing. As I scanned my files and the internet, I couldn’t find anything that seemed right to post because I am still not sure what to say.
Instead …
From the desk of Carol C…
Fluency is coming to the forefront again. Schools, school districts, and states have bought kits, systems, and reading passages to assess students’ fluency rates. The problem? By the time professional development is offered to teachers the message is akin to what is heard at the end of a “Whispered Message Around the Circle” game. A garbled bit of nonsense. The result is misinformation, a lack of understanding, incorrect implementation …
From the desk of Carol C…
I’ve thought a lot about the role of questioning in our classrooms and its effect on students. Questioning, if used to help students think more critically is a vital part of any high achieving classroom. Lately though I’ve started thinking about the answers we give children. Whether kids are preschool age or in college the answers we give them open the door to learn more or shuts it and …
From the desk of Hope…
I was in a kindergarten classroom last week and a student came up to me and asked, “Where did you get your eyes?” Hmmm. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer but it didn’t matter because she was quickly shooed off to do her seat work. She promptly got busy working on sheets laying on her desk. As I left the room, I winked at her and softly mouthed, “we …
From the desk of Carol C…
Teachers have always asked questions. It is a natural part of any lesson, but questioning in 2013 must be different. Today in order to meet the rigorous demands of the Common Core Standards we must approach questioning from a different perspective. Now questions must be preplanned and deliberate just like lessons plans. Questions can no longer be used solely for recall and comprehension. They are to be used to …
From the desk of Carol C…
Let’s be honest- why do we suddenly care about rigor? Most of us would say “because it’s in the new Common Core”. Understandable. After all, how often was that word mentioned before the introduction of the CC? Almost never. So are there reasons besides the CC that we should care about rigor? The answer is “yes”.
Rigor is important because current research shows that students need to be able …