I recently visited a friend of mine whose son and his family are relocating to this area. The son, his wife and two very young daughters are staying with his parents while they sell their house and get re-established. Another of my friends accompanied me on this visit; and as any good early education folks […]
Does Education Reform Need Reforming?
Changing the Way Children are Taught
You may be familiar with a group in our community called Alamance Citizens for Education (ACE). They are a citizen’s group that looks at the issue of community involvement in our public schools. They spearhead many programs and projects, including the Classroom Closet which provides supplies for classroom teachers. I am on their email list […]
Too Much Technology?
The weather and a terrible cold have kept me home for the last few days, doing some reading, writing and watching TV. During this time I saw a program on Frontline about how technology is affecting all of us, entitled “Digital Nation”. If you missed it, you can watch it online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/ . I […]
A Christmas message…
As we celebrate this holiday season, I hope that each of you can take the time to truly enjoy being with your families. The magic and wonder that young children bring to this holy season lasts for just a few short years, but their experiences during these years will define how they think about Christmas […]
Halloween is Not so Scary
Almost every year someone asks me how I feel about celebrating Halloween with young children, especially in a church setting. My personal feeling is that Halloween is much like many other things in life; it’s all about how you look at it. I look at it as a learning opportunity. At our school we tell […]
Becky Bailey and Conscious Discipline
We closed our playschool last Friday so that our staff could attend the North Carolina Association of Educators of Young Children conference in Raleigh, and what an awesome experience it was. We don’t go to this conference every year, because of the cost, but when I heard that the keynote speaker was Dr. Becky Bailey, […]
What Are Our True Priorities in Educating Children?
I want to share with you a letter to the editor that I recently submitted to my hometown paper. In a short editorial, written on the first day public schools opened in Alamance County, the editor gave a laundry list of things he hoped the schools would accomplish during the school year. I felt that […]
Some Thoughts on Potty Training
I am often asked for advice on potty training children, particularly by the parents of children who will be entering our three year old program in the fall and the child is not yet trained. I don’t advocate pushing a young child into potty training too soon, but in my personal experience, by age three […]
EOG Testing… Do You Have a Horror Story?
Everywhere I go I hear people talking about how awful the EOGs were this year, particularly in the elementary grades: How the material they covered was actually way beyond the grade level of the students taking the tests How stressful they are for students and teachers How much time was spent cramming for the tests […]