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You'll find practical classroom strategies and tips from real educators, as well as lesson ideas, personal stories, and innovative approaches to improving your teaching practice. If you have any thoughts or comments about these blogs, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Elena AguilarOctober 21, 2008

"I feel like I'm playing Whac-A-Mole every day," said the beginning teacher as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

I nodded and had flashbacks of my own first months teaching middle school. The class is settled, focused, and calm for two seconds, and then pop! On the other side of the room, a kid shouts, throws, reaches, jumps, and I dart over to "smash" him down. And then pop! I'm dashing to a distant corner, and smash, and pop! Pop! POP!

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Jim MoultonOctober 16, 2008

I still remember the first time I saw the materials from Teaching Tolerance, the magazine by the organization of the same name. This group seeks to promote tolerance, and it offers free, high-quality curricular materials for all grade levels.

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Bob LenzOctober 14, 2008

My children are in the fifth and seventh grades. At least twice a year, my wife and I meet with their teachers to set goals, to review their progress towards these goals, and to agree about how we can all best support our children's learning at home and at school. Why is it that after elementary school, this important practice often comes to an end?

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Ben JohnsonOctober 7, 2008

All students need to learn. I have attended specialty training on how to help limited-English-proficiency students, or gifted students, or special education students, and it all comes down to one thing -- JPGT (just plain good teaching). One of the things I have learned about JPGT is that when you apply it, it works on all students, not just the special ones.

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Bob LenzOctober 2, 2008

One of Envision Schools's four principles is about building relationships. Often, the difference between a student graduating and going to college and a student not finishing school or going on to college is the relationship that student has with just one adult at school who knows him or her well, believes in the student's ability to succeed, and will not let him or her fail.

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Suzie BossSeptember 30, 2008

Before she attended a summer leadership event sponsored by Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., Allie, a sixteen-year-old from Pasadena, California, says she had heard both of these words: social and entrepreneur. "But," she adds, "I had never put them together before." Now, after taking part in the Girl Scouts Challenge and Change program, she feels inspired to become a social entrepreneur herself.

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Stephen HurleySeptember 25, 2008

This is the second part of a two-part entry. Read part one.

The school year doesn't officially begin for another twelve hours, but already, a couple of things about our plan to introduce students to an interdisciplinary program have made themselves quite clear.

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Elena AguilarSeptember 23, 2008

There is a strong case to be made for integrating curriculum. It strengthens skills that students encounter in one content area but also practice in another, and it can lead to the mastery of those skills. It is also a more authentic way of learning because it reflects what we experience, both professionally and personally, in the world.

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Stephen HurleySeptember 18, 2008

"The highly structured school with its fixed timetable, isolated subject areas, centralized curriculum, and authoritarian nature is giving way to a new order that places less stress on mechanical rote learning and greater importance on the discovery and exploration of concepts and impressions."

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