When it comes to science and mathematics education, the United States has often ranked low compared to our educational counterparts in Asian countries like Japan and South Korea. However, China has started to look to the United States for something that their science curriculum has been lacking: hands-on activities. According to Education News, in an effort to improve their higher education systems, China is working to improve what is lacking in early education institutions. With a past shift on standardized testing, China is starting to realize the higher value in practices that include more practical and hands…

It is common knowledge that attendance is crucial to school success, with chronic absenteeism negatively impacting students’ grades and even serving as an indicator of future dropouts. However, it is not just truant students who are “at risk.” Students who miss a lot of school due to le…

This blog was originally published on Finding Common Ground at Education Week by Peter DeWitt on September 10th 2013 at 5:46 AM

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On Sunday, August 25, a 28-year-old man was shot just across the street from Charles Evans Hughes Elementary School in Chicago, a mere 12 hours before the first day of school began. According to

The typical recommended young adult (YA) reading list on the internet will usually consist of classic titles, along with recent big successes in various genres with proven popularity or staying power. While there’s nothing wrong with mentioning these books (they are a safe bet) I would argue that they’re missing an untapped gold mine of exciting books, including adult and nonfiction, when they’re branded as “recommended books for reluctant readers”.

The people who create YA book lists are readers themselves, which makes sense as they have a rich background of reading and enthusiastically want to share what they themselves have enjoyed. Naturally, on some level there is a bias towards the literature that they either grew up reading or currently like. The problem is that this leads to recommended re…

This post was originally published on Wonder of Children, by Lisa Dewey Wells, on September 28, 2011.

Lisa Wells has taught for 20 years in independent schools in MA, NY and MD. She currently writes a blog on child development, teaches yoga and tries to spend as much time with her two high schoolers as they will allow. Lisa’s committed to knowing each learner as an individual, creating a classroom community where the social curriculum is interwoven with the academic fabric and sharing her work with yoga and meditation with teachers and students. As a consulting teacher for the…