It’s not enough to say individual learning styles exist. We have to respect them. When we lived on the farm, our tree house builder was supposed to be the builder for the room we were adding on to the house. He had no idea what he was doing building that room. But I didn’t figure that […]
The most surprising thing about moving from NYC to Madison, WI is that after we moved, it felt like there was not actually anything to spend money on. For example, kids have their birthday parties at home or in a park. And people aren’t willing to spend a lot to go out to dinner. So […]
Certification is messed up. People in their middle-age are most likely to pay for certification in a career-related skill. But kids are the ones who will most benefit from professional certifications.
The measurement for whether school is successful is — drumroll — if the kid does well in school. Think about it: You have never read research that says what kids do in school causes a person to have a good adult life. Neither the school or the teacher has long-term impact on outcomes. So we […]
My grandma was a teacher with an open classroom and I went there when our school holidays did not coincide. Since her classroom was first through third grade I got to go there for a long time.
My son is friends with a girl who grew up in the foster care system. Her mother left when she was a toddler. Then her dad died of a drug overdose. In front of her. We have known her only a short time, since a family adopted her at age 15. She was at our […]
Primary and secondary school teaching was never meant to be a real profession. Women used to take these jobs until they got married. You can see this during Children’s Blizzard, which happened in the midwest during the 1800s. The Blizzard occurred unexpectedly during the school day. And hundreds of teachers had the nearly impossible job […]
Women went to work outside the home to create a more equitable society. But the more equitable a society is the more clearly women want labor divided by gender. Where are we today? In a study in 2022 women in a very selective college assumed that when they marry they will be responsible for the […]
There is still no treatment for social skills in school-aged kids that is approved by the FDA because there is no evidence that the treatments kid get in school make a difference long term. Schools provide interventions to kids who are annoying the teachers so they stop doing whatever is annoying.
When it comes to sensory input, change the environment rather than the person. That’s why I made a castle for myself to sleep in. Once I understood my sensory integration dysfunction, I noticed I adjust my environment for sensory needs all the time, unconsciously — the castle is one of many places where I make sure […]