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At Risk Youth: The Teacher’s the Thing by Which to Catch the Student Being
Summary: Meta-studies of psychotherapeutic outcomes, transposed onto relationships between teacher and student, suggest a preponderance of any change in an at risk kid’s academics stems directly from a positive relationship with a teacher. You know the kid. He sits near … Continue reading
School Reform: The Dance of Competencies and Traditional Grading
Summary: Though the focus on narrow reading, writing, and mathematics competencies serves employers and highlights the need to improve skills, it may also reflect the mirage that traditional grading has become. Sometimes one has to step outside of a familiar … Continue reading
Schools and Culture: Progress in Infant Mortality Begs a Question or Two
Summary: Progress in infant mortality addresses the same root causes as the struggles of low income students in our schools. The academic struggles of low income students do not originate in poor schools, though are encumbered by them, but in … Continue reading
At Risk Kids: Attention Deficit Disorder — Its Diagnosis, Its Treatment, and as a Canary in Culture
Summary: With diagnosis of attention disorders on a substantial rise, medication is useful, but is not a panacea, and kids with these disorders are a flock of cultural canaries. The rate of growth of the number of school age kids … Continue reading
At Risk Students: Can Willpower Be Taught? Part B
Summary: A book by the New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg tells the story of one individual and numerous researchers that suggest that willpower can be taught. See also Part A, last week’s post. As life has it, a book … Continue reading
At Risk Students: Can Willpower Be Taught? Part A
Summary: Numerous studies suggest that “performance character traits”, such as perseverance and a willingness to work hard count for more in academic success than sheer intellectual capacity. Can such willpower be taught? The first of two posts on this topic. … Continue reading
Schools and Culture: The Wearing Down of Teacher
Summary: 46% of American teachers quit the profession within their first five years; what role does contemporary culture and the characteristics of the kids it turns out play in this appalling statistic? Recently I read with astonishment a reference in … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part C
Summary: A program to provide extra help to struggling students in one school shows the potential inherent in staff/administration cooperative planning. Among the casualties of recession driven budget cuts in our school was the after school activity bus, admittedly a … Continue reading
Schools and Culture: Math and the Undermotivated Student
Summary: Mathematics learning requires consistent attention to task, which leaves the many indifferent students marooned well behind the pace of the class. The most frequent conversation I have with my students revolves around their failure to thrive in their studies, … Continue reading
Posted in Schools and Culture
Tagged indifferent students, math teaching, student motivation
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