Author Archives: thinkingaboutkids

Love and respect for young people needs to be the “common core” of the equation, not fixed standards put together to rank and sort learners into rigid categories, to decide who has passed and who has failed. In order for educational settings to … Continue reading →

By: Diane Kashin, Ed.D, RECE. To begin with I would like to wish all the followers and readers of this blog a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! A new year is the time for reflection and resolutions. For me, 201… Source: What … Continue reading →

It may be that of all the voices in the classroom, time actually speaks the loudest. How we use time during the day speaks volumes about our beliefs about teaching and learning and our understanding of the developmental needs of … Continue reading →

Maja Wilson and Alfie Kohn have found themselves in a problematic minority during the accountability era dedicated to standards, high-stakes testing, and the ever-present rubric. Rubrics, they argu… Source: Measuring Proficient Teachers Codifies Bad Teaching

“The best schools keep their eye on the prize—the kids—not just whether they are pleasing higher civil authorities. They see the job of adults as one of nurturing intelligence and empathy, op… Source: Invest in Children, Not Testing. It’s That … Continue reading →

The Bonus Effect One Kind of Interest that Rewards Don’t Kill By Alfie Kohn For nearly half a century, research has raised troubling questions about the practice of dangling rewards in front of people to get them to do what … Continue reading →

And there was the day Tyler asked me if he could ‘do a play’. Sure, I’ll just go and get my writing book and a pen.  Tyler fetched a large sheet of drawing paper, and the red, blue, green, black, a… Source: … Continue reading →

This morning I  chatted with a dad whose 3-year-old child was about to board a school bus to go to his preschool in a public school district. The little boy had never set eyes on his new teacher, nor had … Continue reading →

Reporting in Education Week, Evie Blad explains: Having a growth mindset may help buffer students from low-income families from the effects of poverty on academic achievement, researchers found in … Source: Failing Still to Address Poverty Directly: Growth Mindset as … Continue reading →

Ordinarily I avoid the use of the auxiliary verb “should.”  Somehow, during a stream of consciousness moment, I fell into this. Perhaps it’s a chant or a slam poetry piece. School – It Should Not Be  It should not be … Continue reading →