Why We Can’t Just Shut Up and Teach

It is no easy thing to help high school students become better critical thinkers. Especially now. The very act of engaging students in the events…

Bookmonsters Offers Helpful and Important Advice For Parents, But Here’s What It Won’t Tell You

There is no shortage of reading material on what parents can do to help their children learn to read. For some useful information, Natalie Wexler…

We Will Not Shy Away From Teaching Our History

During their senior year, all scholars at all of Democracy Prep’s schools take a rigorous year-long course called Sociology of Change. For the first half…

The Pandemic Is Exactly Why We Need Standardized Testing

In the next few weeks, nearly all school districts in the U.S. will offer at least some in-person instruction. The worst of the pandemic school…

Teachers Are Working So Hard This Year, But Students With Disabilities Need More

I am a special education teacher with 17 years of experience in the classroom and a parent of two children with dyslexia. Recently, I learned…

You Don’t Just ‘Raise’ A Reader, You Have to Teach Kids to Read, Too

When I give presentations about dyslexia, I often illustrate how neurodiversity works by showing a chessboard. Some people can easily see all the patterns of…

The Most Important Question a Teacher Can Ask Is ‘How Are the Children?’

On the sun-glazed African continent, the most storied warrior people, incomparably formidable and sagacious in war, is the Maasai. It is perhaps unexpected, then, to learn…

I Was There When Lucy Calkins Shifted Toward Cognitive Science

In October, national media reported on the remarkable shift toward phonics and away from 3-Cueing now under way for noted reading curriculum leader Lucy Calkins…

Why I Gave My Son Permission to Drop Out of High School

We see a child in a maple treeWe’re watching him climb,You and I.You say, “Come down,You’ll hurt yourself!”I say, “Go upYou’re touching the sky!” –…

We Can’t Avoid Politics. Here’s How to Bring Them Into the Classroom

Only days after the projected presidential results, a microphone unmutes with shuffling in the backdrop, and a doubtful guise on the face of a teenage,…