Development
Helmsley Charitable Trust Selects AUSSIE as Professional Development Partner for Bronx Schools
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust selects AUSSIE/Editure Professional Development as professional development partner for Bronx schools
Funds will support professional development services in approximately 25 Bronx schools
New York, NY (April 8, 2011) – Leading global educator professional development company, Editure Professional Development, announced its partnership with The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. AUSSIE/Editure Professional Development will use funds from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to help K-12 schools in need in the Bronx, New York. Bringing to bear decades of experience and...
A Voice from the Classroom: The Puzzle of Trust
Last year I was meeting with Mr. O- in his classroom in a high school for emotionally disabled children, when Tyreek (not his real name) slipped in. A slender kid with a serious, intellectual demeanor, he approached me and asked if he could have a look at the ballpoint pen in my pocket. New at the school, I was still naïve about the ways of the students, and felt it could only be a decent gesture to trust him. Bad move. He sidled to the other side of the room, began dismantling the pen, and, when asked to return it by Mr. O-, made his escape to the...
Paragraph Six - Pelicans
I’m asking myself two questions in this last blog of the school year. How many students are celebrating the ideas that have inspired them throughout the year, along with the skills they’ve developed? Conversely, how many are feeling the sting or the exhilaration (or, worse, the indifference) of their standardized test scores?
I suspect the latter number is far higher. John Dewey, who I mentioned in an earlier post for his concern about...
Paragraph Six - Let Us Now Continue to Praise Freewriting
Last week I was politely interrupted by my word monitor Gina while giving evidence for the benefits of freewriting. I promised to move beyond the dry research to hear the more liquid anecdotes this week. And so I will deliver.
First a spanking fresh one, from a workshop last week. I had planned a session to introduce the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme to the staff of PS 201 in Queens. My task was to promote questioning, inquiry, connections – all hallmarks of the...
Paragraph Six - An Art and A Talent
I was facilitating a session at a retreat for the staff and a sprinkling of students from a Bronx high school. I was modeling the process of “open freewriting.” A teacher timed me while I wrote, for one minute, what came to my mind:
Go. What will I write? Blackbird. I saw one this morning. Blackbird, fly! And how many ways are...
Paragraph Six - The Golden Thread to the Wolves of Long Island
“These so-called ‘golden threads’ are very nice, and probably what education should be all about, but if I followed any in my classroom, I can guarantee my students wouldn’t pass the ________ (insert name of any high stakes test),” wail the skeptics. On the contrary, as we discussed in Paragraph Six, #15, students who make connections “across life,” as Judith Langer put it in her study of schools that beat the odds, actually do better on...
Through the Classroom Door: An Inside Look at Differentiation
Outstanding, Creative, Beneficial, Informative, Motivating, Recommendable, Inspirational, Awesome, Wonderful, Insightful, Useful, Excellent, Helpful, and Educational were just a few words to describe last week’s AUSSIE workshop Through the Classroom Door: An Inside Look at Differentiation.
Paragraph Six - Students' Questions and Planning for Surprises
Update on “The Question that Fed My Writing Unit.” You noticed the title change, didn’t you? From “The Question that Ate My Writing Unit” to “The Question that Fed My Writing Unit?” I may be jumping the gun, but my hope is only growing that teacher Tom McMurrer’s second grade writing unit on letter writing is becoming more meaningful in response to the students’ unexpected questions: (“Where do you get a stamp?” “What happens...
