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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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….