Browsing CategoryMental Meanderings

On July 25, 2018 Citi Retail Services published the findings of their survey indicating that a parent’s bill for school supplies tends to be higher when their children help them shop.  The post did not provide any solutions, just merely suggests it is a dilemma for parents. I imagine most parents already knew this truth since we shop more than once a year.  When my children were little I would leave them home with my husband on Sundays so that I could go to the Supermarket without the inconvenience of time lost “discussing” with my children why we weren’t going …

Tests, by design, are created to look at what you want them to look at.  If you want to look at temperature you create a thermometer.  If you want to look at bones inside the body you create the x-ray machine.  The flaw in this is the assumption that what you are looking at is in fact what you need to know.  When it comes to testing of children and young adults the focus of most functional tests is academic.  We think IQ is a marker of ability (despite the large body of research indicating that, at the very least, …

If I had just one minute to speak with Betsy DeVos, the United States Secretary of Education, this what I would like to say:  Every class in America has children with a learning disability in it, whether because of the push to mainstream or because the child has not yet been identified.  Based on this fact EVERY class should be taught by a special education teacher.  Eliminate the General Education teaching degree.  Use the upcoming staff developments to bring the existing teachers up to speed.  Mandate that any teacher taking credits to complete requirements or change their pay level make those …