When I was in high school, the science club was like a dusty old chalkboard, largely forgotten and barely acknowledged, even by department faculty. And while writing lab reports and conducting investigations were enjoyable, it didn’t occur to me that I could have been performing experiments after school. But for others, this idea has occurred. The award-winning Science Club for Girls (SCFG) takes extracurricular activities to a [...]
Within the vast public school system in Philadelphia, an alternative kind of education rears its tiny head. This atypical school rebuilds the educational framework—literally. At the Workshop School, students are self-driven, becoming their own inspiration to achieve their goals through their own innovation. Taking on projects ranging from electric car design to soundproof recording studios; the Workshop School allows students to delve into the hands-on [...]
Within the vast public school system in Philadelphia, an alternative kind of education rears its tiny head. This atypical school rebuilds the educational framework—literally. At the Workshop School, students are self-driven, becoming their own inspiration to achieve their goals through their own innovation. Taking on projects ranging from electric car design to soundproof recording studios; the Workshop School allows students to delve into the [...]
In 1877, two professors at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg, published a book entitled, Higher Lessons in English, wherein they offered an altogether new way of teaching students how to structure sentences. Termed sentence diagramming, this technique used a particular graphic layout to demonstrate the relationships between the various parts of speech. By configuring the individual parts of sentences in this visual [...]
Much of the rhetoric concerning the present state of America’s education system revolves around the need to create new assessments, new standards and new methodologies. But what if progress lies somewhere in our past? An interesting model of personalized learning—reminiscent of the old-time one-room schoolhouses—is just now emerging and beginning to gain some traction. Dubbed the “micro-school,” this divergent educational format breaks with [...]
Let’s face it. The typical high-school poetry experience is usually not the most inspiring or transformative. Toiling over iambic pentameter, archaic vocabulary and the subtlest of metaphors can strike many students as somewhat pointless and irrelevant beyond their obligatory English courses. In Florida, however, a poetry program run by Tigertail Productions called WordSpeak is offering an alternative poetic experience for 1,000 South Floridian teenagers. Each [...]
There is a rather confounding dynamic currently at play when it comes to our country’s views on education. Popular opinion would categorize our colleges and universities as top-tier institutions. In contrast, however, for many years now, the condition of the United States’ K‐12 system has preoccupied many as a pressing and disconcerting issue. So are we donning rose-colored glasses when we turn our [...]
Though I’ve been out of the classroom (as student and teacher) for almost 35 years, I still learn something new just about every day. The fact that I’m no longer working within the boundaries of an institution of learning does not mean that I’m finished with acquiring new information to fit into an already-crowded brain. It’s no stretch to admit that I am [...]
[Note: The first paragraph of the Slate article referenced here contains potentially offensive language, but we feel the remainder is worthy of exploration. Ed.] Ever wondered why you or others say amongst instead of among, or amidst instead of amid? Wonder no longer! The preference for these words is an example of a strange phenomenon in which Millennials, a generation of increasingly tech- and abbreviation-savvy individuals, are using erroneous [...]
I distinctly remember learning to take notes in school, because I hated it. We were introduced to a two-column style of note-taking in fourth grade, which meant writing summaries or important points from readings in one column and questions about the material on the other. It wasn’t until the end of high school that a teacher mentioned the questions didn’t necessarily have to address confusion [...]