A couple of weeks ago, two students in my room—a boy and a girl, friends who often play as part of the same group—were on the outs. Small conflicts kept erupting. On the advice of one of our parent volunteers, who had just finished a difficult recess with them, I pulled those two students aside…
In March and April, the middle school students completed a racial justice unit in ELA class. One group of students read Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes and another read Blended by Sharon M. Draper for their book clubs and discussed the books weekly. Both groups also read articles about the origins of the Black…
The last element that makes a “modern classrooms” approach to math instruction work is mastery-based grading. I typically set mastery at 80% accuracy. There are numerous benefits to a mastery model: I am more able to understand what each student has and has not mastered I can use that knowledge to provide more targeted instructional…
I was at the ISACS (Independent Schools Association of the Central States) Head’s conference last week. At that annual gathering, heads of schools from 18 states from Ohio to Arkansas to North Dakota gather to learn from experts, share and connect, and talk to peers from across the country. During the conference, one session touched…
The middle school as a whole is reading the young reader’s edition of “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” this month in their student-led book clubs. This book is a memoir that tells the story of a Malawian teen living through famine in the early 2000s and his mission to learn enough about renewable energy…
One thing I heard over and over when we began remote learning—first for a few days here and there in the fall, and then in December—was parents expressing amazement at how much more responsible and independent their children were during remote learning this year. It’s strange that we have this point of comparison. Whoever would…