A professor at a Pennsylvania university recently set out to determine how college student's grades are impacted by their Facebook usage. Today's New York Times reveals his study's surprising conclusions, in an article found here. The study found that while spending an inordinate amount of time on Facebook is related to negative outcomes, just checking Facebook for a few [...]
I spent last Saturday with one of my sons at a college lacrosse clinic, where he along with scores of other high school juniors were demonstrating their skills to a group of college coaches, with the hopes of being recruited for a college team. After the lunch break, the head coach of the host school stepped in front of [...]
Back in August, GCP posted a piece called "Waiting For Superman? Superwoman Was Already Here" in which Daniel Petter-Lipstein extolled the virtues of a Montessori education. As a follow-up to that post, we asked Anne Williams-Isom, mother of three Montessori trained children ages 18, 15 and 9, for her perspective on Daniel's piece and the Montessori experience. She began [...]
Today's New York Times features an article, found here, on the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program. North Carolina gives scholarships to top academic students attending an in-state public college, and in return the students spend at least four years teaching in a public school. The program, which for the last 25 years has been attracting top talent and training [...]
Today’s New York Times features an article, found here, which details how little today’s schools teach about the history of the Civil Rights movement and how little today’s students know about basic civil rights history. Julian Bond, the former civil rights activist who began teaching the history of the civil rights movement twenty years ago, speaks of having students [...]
Today's New York Times Magazine includes a very interesting article, found here, about how the heads of a Manhattan private school and a national charter school program are working to help their students develop good character traits as well as good study habits. The private school head feared that his school's focus on testing at every juncture and encouraging [...]
The concern about boys not doing as well as girls in school is growing in Europe, and officials there worry whether the lack of male teachers in school could be a contributing factor. An article originally published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, found here, discusses the concern about there being "too many women teachers" in the French school [...]
Now that our sons are back in school, it’s time for parents to focus on our Back to School To Do List. Here are a few things you can do to help your son start the school year well: •Review your son’s schedule. Find out what you can about the teachers from your son, other parents and whatever adult [...]
Cyberbullying is a huge issue for children and parents in this digital age. Common Sense Media, a non profit organization devoted to helping families navigate the world of media and technology, offers a series of Family Engagement Resources to help parents deal with this problem. These resources, which can be found here, include grade specific tips, articles and videos [...]
A generation ago, when I was a kid being bused into a predominantly white school in Brooklyn, I faced daily taunting and intimidation on the school bus from other Black students, who accused me of “acting white,” and “thinking I was cute” for the crime of being the only Black kid picked to be in the class for high [...]