Maurice Sendak’s age

Just after I posted yesterday about age-based schooling, I read a short excerpt from a 2009 New Yorker interview with the late Maurice Sendak.  Sendak says of the photograph that accompanies the interview “I am in my bathrobe in the forest with my dog, Herman, who is a German shepherd of unknowable age, because I [...]

Norms, strengths, disorders…

I recently heard about Dale Archer’s new book Better than Normal: How What Makes You Different Can Make You Exceptional, in which he cautions against the over-diagnosing of psychiatric disorders.  If we’re not careful, Archer says, we’ll stomp out some of our best potential.  I’m finding that the book is a little slow going at [...]

A good read on introversion

I’ve been reading Marti Olsen Laney’s Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child, after coming across mention of it in this article from a few years ago. In general it’s my opinion that diagnoses and other labels are best used with extreme care, caution, and awareness of their limitations and potential for undermining our best intentions. [...]

Uniqueness is messy.

This American Life’s recent episode on middle school mentions Maria Montessori’s belief that the appropriate environment for a child of middle school age is a farm school. What I’ve read about this idea and many other Montessori ideas sounds wonderful: young people at work and play alongside respectful adults who can teach them to do [...]

Scare tactics and school zones

Fifteen miles per hour is very, very slow, for a car.  It occurred to me that in as hurried a world as this one, it’s quite amazing that (most) drivers are willing to slow down their vehicles that much in order to avoid endangering children outside of a school. Then yesterday I heard a story [...]

Where the kids are

At some point when I was in college I decided to take all the classes I’d need to earn a teaching certificate, so I could work in a school.  I realized the other day that I didn’t make the decision because I wanted to be a teacher.  I made it because I wanted to work [...]

Tools for a fraction renaissance

Many a parent has told me that if only they’d had a set of fraction tiles when they were young, math would have gone very differently for them. That may even be understating things.  It’s hard to imagine a handful of plastic pieces could significantly change the course of a life, but then again, things [...]

Beyond Facts & Flashcards

 I was sorting some books the other day and came across a favorite I’d forgotten about: Beyond Facts & Flashcards: Exploring Math with Your Kids.  It’s just how it sounds – a guide to facilitating discovery and building relationships with math that transcend the monotony of most math curricula.  When I came across it, it [...]

Harbinger

One of the kids I know arrived at my office this week with a droopy air about him.  I met him for the first time in late June, and I’ve only known him as a cheerful, curious, engaged person. Each time I’ve seen him he’s had new projects and experiences to report. I’ve heard about [...]

Let them read

How well a person reads out loud is not a reliable indication of how well the person can read.  Unfortunately it’s the only measure of comprehension we’ve come up with, other than asking the person to recount the events or information in what they’ve read, so we keep making our assessments of reading ability based [...]