The Future of Education Steps away from the Massachusetts State House, Strategies for Children, a non-profit advocacy and policy organization seeking to have a positive impact on young children and families, held a conversation reminiscent of NISCE Professional Conversations. The panel discussion was titled Education Reform at 20: What Lies Ahead and was supported by the Boston Bar Association. Panelists acknowledged the impact of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, noting that it … [Read more...]
Understanding The Impact of Trauma
(One of NISCE’s partner schools, Dearborn Academy, works exclusively with learning disabled students and has been developing a better understanding of the impact of childhood trauma on learning. We invited Linda Johnson, the Clinical Coordinator at Dearborn Academy High School, and Howard Rossman, Director of Dearborn Academy, to share some of what they’ve discovered. Linda is responsible for helping the Dearborn High School, Elementary/Middle School, and STEP become trauma-informed … [Read more...]
A New Driver for Expanding Access to Early Education?
"Parents—and this is a real sea change—understand the infant-toddle years as learning years." —Betty Holcomb, Policy Director, Children's Initiatives An article recently posted in the Wall Street Journal focused on the growing competition to find excellent early childhood programs in New York City. The change in this case is that the demand appears to be driven by affluent parents who are newly convinced that their very young children need the stimulation and guided instruction available … [Read more...]
Jonah Mowry’s Story
Eighth-grader Jonah Mowry posted this extraordinary personal video on bullying and suicide, What’s Goin’ On, on YouTube last December. His video has been viewed over a ten million times and has generated more than 350,000 comments Jonah's video can help schools, families and parent-teacher organization begin a conversation on on issues of bullying and acceptance, and his courage and honesty can be an inspiration to us all. … [Read more...]
Educational Triage—Who Gets Lost?
A recent article by Susan Sparks posted in Education Week cites research into the unintended consequences of combining Federal accountability standards with increases in state curriculum standards. The article calls out the efforts made to improve the testing performance of the so-called 'bubble children' or students who almost passed the tests.It is the description of a system of 'educational triage,' however, that should be most alarming to those concerned with the state of our … [Read more...]
What’s Your School’s Culture
Central to delivering student-centered education is the continuous feedback loop reflected in the NISCE Instructional model. Thoughtful assessment guides developmentally appropriate differentiated instruction, which promotes student engagement which in turn leads to success as defined for each individual student. Positive and supportive school relationships permeate and sustain each element of the model.In Part 1 of 6, we offer brief tips to help individuals and schools support a true focus on … [Read more...]
What Does The Whole Child Initiative Mean For Student-Centered Education?
A critical element of a student-centered approach is a keen sense of context and boundaries. We observe that there is more to a child than his or her identity as a student. The whole of what is learned is much greater than what is taught, what is tested, what is addressed in curriculum, and what may be in any teacher’s plan book.The Whole Child Initiative The Whole Child Initiative (ASCD) takes this notion seriously and recommends to schools that education should be about nurturing the growth … [Read more...]
The Importance of Relationships and the Basics of Self-Teaching
Sugata Mitra Teaches About Self-Teaching Consider the connection between relationship and self-teaching.At first glance this will appear to be a contradiction. It would seem that self-teaching is, by definition, outside the realm of relationship. Of the list of educational context categories—military, traditional, Montessori, et cetera it is the least dependent on adult guidance. On further inspection, we discover that the very nature of learning is deeply affected by relationship at the … [Read more...]
The Brain’s Development and the Importance of Relationships and Education
In their book, Born for Love, Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz report the ability of a child to access higher level problem solving, executive functioning, and thinking skills ultimately depends on the learned ability to self-regulate, and that these capacities are developed through consistent and reliable connection with safe and caring adults.In simple terms, it is the care and protection of adults that allows infants and children to develop neural pathways in the frontal lobe that transcend … [Read more...]
Can a Military School Be Student-Centered?
As an institution, military education would seem to be something other than student-centered. Individuality may seem to be discouraged, with “service before self” being seen as the highest value. In other places along the continuum we have explored the role of the teacher and his or her capacity to be student-centered even in contexts that do not appear to have the individual learner as a central focus. Is it possible for an individual instructor or officer in a military school or for an entire … [Read more...]
