Monthly Archives: March 2013

Technology and Children: the pluses and minuses

Computers can be used to great effect in schools and they can also interfere with  development when over-used. Therefore much care should be taken on the part of curriculum coordinators, principals, school boards, and teachers to ensure that students reap the benefits of technology rather than its problems. Districts should not rush to assign one-to-one […]

Adolescents Need to Move!

Schools risk losing the interest of broad swathes of their students when they ask younger adolescents to stay quietly inside all day. Some students can handle a full day of table-chair activity but many are overwhelmed by restlessness and become alienated when most of what they do from morning until mid-afternoon is sedentary in nature. […]

Teachers Need a Seat at the Table

What’s the surest way of improving student performance in Maine’s troubled schools? Break down the bureaucratic chains that control what goes on and invite the teachers to the decision-making table. Amongst my teaching acquaintances I do not know many who report having been offered a legitimate seat at the table where the important programming decisions […]

Do We WANT Maine’s Schools to Fail?

It almost seems like our governor WANTS our schools to fail. On the one hand, Governor LePage has called Maine’s schools among the worst in the nation and Maine’s schoolchildren among the least accomplished. On the other hand, he threatens to impoverish our school districts so that school boards are compelled to cut programs and […]