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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of Harvard's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research, and Gaston Caperton, President of the College Board, have written an essay in today's Huffington Post and theRoot.com calling for national focus on educating young Black men. You can read it here. Gates and Caperton co-hosted a webcast discussion of this topic today [...]
"Push for A's at Private School is Keeping Costly Tutors Busy", an article in today's New York Times, details the extensive and expensive tutoring underground in NYC private schools. According to this article, which can be found here, over half of the students in NYC private schools hire tutors during the course of their K-12 years. The article highlights [...]
Dr. Pedro Noguera is the Peter Agnew Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Dr. Noguera is a nationally recognized expert on the best practices to narrow the achievement gap between African American and Latino students and White and Asian students. He has worked both with high poverty urban [...]
GCP wants to hear from YOU about how teachers and school administrators in public and private schools have successfully handled racial incidents involving children of color, especially our boys. We are looking for 10 great examples of how teachers got it right, i.e., handled a potentially offensive or damaging incident in a thoughtful and productive manner, for an upcoming [...]
Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a psychologist and school consultant who has made the study of boys and their development the focus of his career. He is the author or coauthor of many books on this subject, including, "It's a Boy!: Understanding Your Son's Development from Birth to Eighteen" (with Teresa Barker, Ballantine, 2008), the New York Times bestseller, [...]
Here’s an idea for family fun this Spring Break season or on any rainy weekend: board games. Sounds corny, perhaps, but you can have a great time playing board games with your children. It is a golden opportunity to spend time together without any screens, and a good way to build skills, confidence and good sportsmanship (which you must [...]