Category Archives: Blog

What to Say to Kids When The News Is Scary

Leer en español The news can be devastating: Communities are reeling after a mass shooting killed 21 people — including 19 children — at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. That’s after a shooter, motivated by a racist conspiracy theory, shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., and another shooter in Dallas injured three…

What to say to kids about school shootings to ease their stress

If you have school-age children, chances are they’ve already talked to their classmates about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. So what’s the best way to know how they’re feeling and what they’re thinking? Ask them. “Children’s questions may be very different from adults’,” says David Schonfeld, a pediatrician who directs the National Center for…

Identity, mastery, belonging and efficacy: Four ways student agency can flourish

Copyright © 2021 by Shane Safir. All rights reserved. Reprinted from “Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation,” by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan. Corwin Press, Inc., www.Corwin.com.   By Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan The BALMA project was a social experiment where three teachers—one white (Shane), one Afro-Cuban (Lisa), and one…

After the Buffalo slayings, parents struggle through talks with their children

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The mass shooting in a Buffalo grocery store that police say was committed by an 18-year-old man radicalized by white supremacist ideology has left the western New York city torn and searching for answers. For many parents, confronting the ideology espoused by the murder suspect means having difficult conversations with their children…

Trading ‘Please focus’ for ‘How are you?’: A listening strategy that’s helping some teachers improve the classroom experience

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. To her relief, Elissa Levy’s ninth graders remembered how to make friends when they returned this September to East Harlem’s High School for Climate Justice. But after spending prolonged time out of the classroom during the pandemic, they seem to have…

Rethinking claims of racial bias in special education

Across the nation, 13 percent of Black students were diagnosed with disabilities at school, far higher than the 9 percent disability rate among white children, according to the most recent tally of the U.S. Department of Education. The disabilities range from dyslexia and speech impairments to emotional and psychological disorders that include hyperactivity and aggression….

Harnessing the power of future-forecasting to help invent a better world

Jane McGonigal is a game designer, future-forecaster, popular TED speaker, and the bestselling author of Reality Is Broken and SuperBetter. Her new book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today, is a practical call to action that encourages readers to envision and shape a better…

How parents can nurture children’s self-esteem without raising narcissists

Excerpted from “How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t A**holes” by Melinda Wenner Moyer. Copyright © 2021 by Melinda Wenner Moyer and excerpted by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. All rights reserved. By Melinda Wenner Moyer First, I want to correct a misconception that many parents have about self-esteem. There’s a widespread worry that if you…

States and localities pump more money into community colleges than four-year campuses

State and county officials used to think bachelor’s and graduate degree students deserved more money than those pursuing two-year associate degrees, but during the pandemic they changed their minds. Public two-year community colleges achieved a new budgetary milestone in fiscal year 2021 as they reaped 6 percent more money per student from state and local…