For hundreds of years, students in the United States who didn’t quite fit the mold often received no education at all or were even institutionalized. Even after the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA or EHA) in the 1970s, many youngsters slipped through the cracks and did not receive an adequate education. Overhauls in recent years, most notably No Child Left Behind [...]
Education was very important in my house when I was growing up. My mother went to college and was a first–grade teacher. My father went into the US Navy and then became a machinist, eventually owning his own machine shop. Nevertheless, even though one parent was a college graduate and one was not, there was never any question in our household that my [...]
Zombies! What comes to mind? AMC’s The Walking Dead? The Resident Evil franchise? Education? Personally, I imagine the rotting flesh and deep groans of humans who now walk the Earth (extremely slowly) as the undead—acting on one impulse: to satisfy their ravenous appetite for human flesh. But, surprisingly, it is scenarios like this that are proving essential in teaching college classes about survival and human preparedness [...]
Rachael Barron is a science teacher at Wakefield Memorial High School in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Rachael teaches AP Biology, Honors Genetics and Microbiology, College Prep Anatomy & Physiology, and College Prep Introduction to the Physical and Life Sciences. Rachael holds a bachelor of science in biology with a minor in education from Brandeis University. She earned her master of arts in teaching biology from [...]
It has now been over a year since the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were finalized in April 2013. While 26 states actively participated in the development of the standards (the NGSS official site calls them “lead state partners”), the adoption process has been slow and controversial. As of March 2014, the District of Columbia and just eleven states have accepted the standards: [...]
When I was in school, I was one of those kids who hated gym class. I would purposely strike out during kickball so that I could return to the bench as soon as possible; I would let myself get hit when playing dodge ball rather than spend the energy swerving; and I always walked the mile during the annual presidential fitness test, linking [...]
Throughout high school, I had teachers who would rejoice whenever anyone spoke up in class—particularly when they were answering a question correctly. Additionally, they would barely reprimand any student for causing any type of raucous behavior within the classroom. Students loved these teachers. However, I also had teachers who would offer no acknowledgment beyond “correct” when a student answered a question with the [...]
(TAC) isn’t your average arts education organization. In fact, through an interview with its co-founder Kim Guzowski, I learned there isn’t anything average about TAC. From its inception in the fall of 2012, TAC has been a confluence of theatrical production professionals, artisans and educators creating educational experiences in which students apply their knowledge as tools to build, make and create. TAC is the [...]
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) published the 2010 results of the geography portion of their National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) given to fourth, eighth and twelfth graders. The results revealed that nearly 30 percent of tested students were below the Basic knowledge level. The NAEP defines the Basic achievement level as “partial mastery of the knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at each grade.” In [...]
When the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results came out in 2012, they received more attention than usual because of the recent changes in educational policy. Measured against 64 other countries, 33 of which are other member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), American teenagers came in seventeenth in reading, twenty-first in science and twenty-sixth in math. The rankings were [...]