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I chose this article because this common problem does not discriminate in any way and causes so much heartache and long-lasting grief.  Further, this child is still a student of mine and even though I am out of my classroom for nine weeks while teaching in another building, he contacts me to stay in touch.  The emails are always about a school-related situation like the fact that he is worried he won’t get all his books read for the quarter.  However, I believe that he really wants to maintain the connection with an adult in his life who provides him stability and continuity.  

I think that all readers can relate to this child either through the own personal experience or from watc

In mid-December of 1972 when I was 10 years old, our local TV weatherman reported during the 10 o’clock news that he had spotted something unusual on the radar screen.  Over the course of the next several days he revealed that he suspected that this strange blip was actually Santa’s sleigh with eight reindeer.     

I remember running to my older sisters screaming, “It’s true! It’s true! There really is a Santa!”  Only to be crushed by their laughter because a 10-year-old shouldn’t have believed in Santa any longer.  I cried and cried.  Partly because my sisters were making fun of me but mostly because I n

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”  “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”  “Catcher in the Rye.”  The Dictionary.  “The Lord of the Flies.“ The Harry Potter Series.  “Bridge to Terabithia.”  “Call of the Wild.”  “James and the Giant Peach.”  “A Light in the Attic” by Shel Shilverstein.  “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” The Bible. 

I hope that you recognize a few of these book titles.  Do you know what they all have in common?  Most of them are consid

So your child’s school recently finished the first quarter or trimester of school and conducted the parent-teacher conferences.  Did the conference go as well as you had hoped? 

Unfortunately for all involved, those parent-teacher conferences create a lot of anxiety.  Teachers are worried that a parent will come upset about a grade and will verbally attack them because they must certainly shoulder the brunt of the responsibility for the poor grade.  Parents are worried that the teacher is going to point out some sort of flaw in their child.  It’s too bad that P/T conferences have become the most hated event in a school year when actually it should be looked upon as an event to motivate and celebrate. 

There is no denying that there are different levels of ability among people.  Just check out your own family for starters.  Someone in the family is considered the better (or dare I say, best) athlete; one of the children is known as the “snuggler;” another is the “talker;” and yet another is the motherly type.  They are all labels and as parents we often tag our children as a way to show that we recognize their strengths and special attributes.

Now think of those same children at school.  What sort of label do they carry there?  Who gave that label to them?  The very same parents who have labeled their children by their attributes exhibited in the home become incensed if they discover their child has been labeled at school. 

So when is “good enough, good enough”? 

This is the question of the week in my classroom with my students.  I overheard them use the phrase “oh, that’s good enough” when they were doing their math homework recently during study hall.  Most of them were struggling with it and were getting frustrated.  Eventually one of them spoke the tainted phrase.

That one phrase has sparked a new movement in my classroom.  We apply it to everything.  I ask them to clean up the floor at the end of the day.  They pick up most of

We are only a few weeks into the new school year and I can already see the wheels falling off the cart for some of my students.  I know the transition to the start of the year can be slow as kids shake off the cobwebs in their brains after a summer of sleeping late and playing video games.  Some kids are able to get the cart rolling along by themselves and get back up to speed quickly.  For others, they need a jack that is cranked up by their teachers and parents to get things moving forward again.

So it is with Quentin, one of my sixth graders.  Quentin’s role in our school is what I term as “the mayor.”  He goes around glad-handing everyone, smiling and cutting jokes to bring the attention to himself.

This is the first school year in which I will be teaching U. S. history.  Personally, I wasn’t too good of a student back in high school when I supposed to be learning it for the first time.  I blame my transitioning to three schools in three years as the reason I seemed to miss what happened when, to whom, and why.  My attempt at this subject didn’t improve much in college but I have conveniently blamed that on something too, which I now forget.

But here I am, charged with passing on the historical lessons of our forefathers to our next generation of leaders.  I ask myself, What do these students really need to know and take-away from history, an

It started out rather slowly. A few missed periods.  An increase in blemishes.  A reduced sex drive.  (Okay, that one was hard to judge but it did get worse.)  Premature menopause snuck into my life like a snake through the grass. 

My journe

You couldn’t pay me all the tea in China to go back to high school.  For me, it was the most awkward time in my life and has left me with a three-year span of time in which I carry few memories.  I have watched both my own children and dozens of my former students make the transition from middle school to high school and think I have discovered a few simple keys for success.

Parents must be involved.  I know this sounds like the exact opposite of what most teenagers want, but in fact, is a critical element for your children to succeed.   High school is the time to continue attending school events and supporting your child and their school.  Being a visible presence allows you to meet your child’s friends, other parents, the teachers and administrators.  All of these connections are important for you to get a clear picture of the people with whom your child is spending a lot of time when not at home.  

As Hilary Clinton said back in 1996, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and so meeting all the members of your child’s