Restorative practices are helping schools move away from punitive practices to more therapeutic practices for everything from behavioral issues to counseling and treating trauma to classroom management. Circle talks have become a staple of the restorative classroom, lowering suspensions in favor of social-emotional learning strategies to foster student, teacher, and family relationships. Why Circles? When… Read More

Between required curriculum and mandated testing, it can often feel like there aren’t many opportunities to fit in enriching, fundamental activities like reading. However, the “Drop Everything and Read,” (or D.E.A.R.) movement hopes to encourage students, families, and educators to immerse themselves in reading. D.E.A.R. was inspired by Beverly Cleary (who wrote about the concept… Read More

Recognizing where our students come from, what they’re facing, and how we can help them in different ways is a key component of responsive teaching practices. We discussed this and much more during a recent symposium put on by Concordia University-Portland and TeachingPartners. Guests included keynote speaker Lynda Coates with Communication Across Barriers and Dr…. Read More

Trauma and stress can alter a young person’s brain functions, impacting learning, causing behavioral problems, and igniting a cycle of violence. Poverty, violence, sexual abuse, food insecurity, and home instability are just a few factors causing brain-altering stress for our nation’s kids. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) reports that nearly 50 percent of… Read More

Innovation. It’s such an overused term, isn’t it? Everyone these days is striving to be innovative, is promising innovation, is encouraging others to innovate. But if you think about it, it’s overused for a reason. It’s a single word that encapsulates everything that is exciting in any industry—a goal to shoot for because it means… Read More

It’s seems obvious, right? If students have increased access to a diverse and abundant selection of books, they’ll be more likely to discover something they like and read more. And yet, many of our nation’s children lack access to books at home and have lackluster classroom libraries. Providing a bounty of books for students is… Read More

While it’s easy to say there’s no better time than February—National Children’s Dental Health Month—to talk about oral health, the truth is: we should be talking this critical issue year-round. Did you know that children ages five to 17 miss nearly two million school days annually due to dental problems? And did you know that… Read More

Nowadays teachers often find themselves in a situation where they have another educator in their classroom for either part of or the entire day. The educator might be an EL, special education, or reading specialist or another certificated staff member that a teacher works with on a regular basis. Are you working with someone else… Read More

Reading, writing, arithmetic… Isn’t it time for a modern shift—one that truly meets the needs of today’s tech-savvy learners? That’s the idea behind the current shift toward teaching 21st-century skills. A new book from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), The i5 Approach, provides a systematic approach to modernizing existing lessons and advancing… Read More

How do you get a classroom full of energetic little kids to practice stillness? Believe it or not, it’s possible. Mindfulness isn’t new, but it’s undoubtedly become a popular classroom movement in recent years. What is it? According to Psychology Today, “mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present.” This can happen… Read More

When it comes to assessing our students, it’s easy to fall into the age old trap of giving an exam, grading it, and moving forward. But to get the most out of the assessments we give, we need to stay focused on the two primary goals of an assessment: gather evidence that our students learned… Read More

With time in short supply for many teachers and administrators, deleting a few meetings from everyone’s calendars is likely to elicit sighs of relief—understandably! But less meetings doesn’t have to mean a weaker flow of information. In fact, there are plenty of tools that can help your team collaborate throughout the week, keeping everyone informed,… Read More

Poverty, violence, hunger, abuse, and an unstable world are causing chronic stress for our nation’s kids. And that sad truth is that prolonged exposure to stress can damage the centers of the brain associated with learning, cause behavioral problems, and increase the cycle of violence. Nearly half of the children in the United States, or… Read More

It’s January, which means there are six months of classes, lesson planning, meetings, and assessments left. As hardworking educators, we can easily start wishing away the rest of the year to get to summer. But honestly, by maintaining a healthy and clear perspective, there’s no reason that this year couldn’t be your best teaching year… Read More