Blogs on Upper Elementary (3-5)

How does a school go from struggling to success? My goal in this blog is to share success stories and resources to help you make a difference in all the schools with whom you make contact. There is a role for everyone here: principal, superintendent, teacher, parent, school board member, politician, community member and taxpayer.

Teleporting, flying cars and Back To The Future style hover-boards. These have all been promised to us within the next few years, but there is little hope of seeing them any time soon. These far-fetched technologies fill us with excitement about what the future may hold, inspiring generations of dreamers to learn math, science and engineering.

Day after day, Alone on a hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,

This poem was on the blackboard when I walked into Mr. Cooper's fifth grade classroom in 1975. Soon we were listening to the Beatles sing the Fool on the Hill and interpreting the poem as a class. This brief introduction to contemporary poets was the hook for a project that transformed my future: the Personal Poetry Book Project.

Traditionally, instructional coaches have played a rather narrow role in schools, usually working primarily one-on-one with another teacher. This work is important and coaches can be instrumental in developing the skills of teachers. But, if the conditions are right, coaches can work in several additional ways to support the transformation of a site.