Happy new year! I’m sure you’ll be heading back to the classroom on Monday, so let’s savor these last couple of days of the holiday break before we’re all back at it! Just as today’s brands are created by customer reaction rather than from a marketing team brainstorming session, new words make their way into…

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that there should be prayer in public schools.  Actually, if the local community wants prayer to be present “in” the public school, it should be allowed…but that’s another topic for another article. Regardless of prayer being permitted or not permitted in the school, the school and its students should…

One of my earliest childhood memories was snuggling up to my mom on the couch on Sunday mornings and she would read the comics to me.  It didn’t matter that I may not have understood the humor the cartoonist was presenting, because mom would explain what was going on in the pictures.  I still remember…

You may think the title of this article has the word “teaching” spelled incorrectly. That assumption would be incorrect. “Teching” was a termed coined in the early video game era, but some folks started to use it regarding the increasing utilization of technology. Today, most children “tech” for enjoyment…alright, young adults do too (and some…

When I was a teacher, all ten of us – one teacher for each home room (K-8), and yours truly who taught 7th and 8th grade science and health, 8th grade algebra, and instrumental music – had recess duty once every other week.  Kids played.  It was not structured.  It was not attuned to standards. …

A few years ago, I met a gentleman who told me he played in a band for 19 years, and made 3 records.  He loves music, and is grateful to his dad for “making” him learn a musical instrument – even though when he was young, he hated it…especially when his friends were outside playing…

I’m sure you’ve heard the argument that students in faith-based schools academically outperform public school students because of small class sizes. Let’s debunk that myth here and now by going back to 1965…over 50 years ago.  The 1st grade at St. Albert the Great School in Baldwin Boro (a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA) had approximately…

I’ve succeed in finding something that does not exist in some computer coding languages – the “does not equal” sign. ≠ needs to be found somewhere, then pasted in as a character.  There are suggestions in several coding forums regarding what can be used, such as -=, which is the negation of the equal sign, !=…

Why do we need another Web site that talks about education? Why is there a picture of the space shuttle blasting off? And why is education spelled that way? Almost unbelievably, this site was “launched” 10 years ago (now you know the answer to “Why” number 2, and can it really be that long?).  At…

Here’s a lesson in how something  that’s been around for decades can disappear – without knowing what happened to it. A great resource for news in the education space was Education News at http://www.educationnews.org.  Starting in 1997, their mission was a noble one: A Global Leading News Source covering educational, political, business, and environmental issues….