Empowering Adults to Support Each Other at the Beginning of a New School Year:  A Conversation with Authors Emily Parrelli and Lisa Dewey Wells   Emily Parrelli and Lisa Read More…
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  In the first week of my teaching career, I had a colleague say to me, “You get only one chance to start the year off in a good place Read More…
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Students come to ACS Cobham International School in England from all over the world. Some stay for their entire pre-collegiate school experience and others make a home there for just Read More…
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National Bullying Prevention month may have ended last week, but the work of stopping bullying in our classrooms and schools continues throughout the year. By committing to The Challenge of Read More…
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Michelle Gill is a professional development designer at the Center for Responsive Schools, and former educator at Garfield Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia. During her time at Garfield, she Read More…
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I can remember my first days as a principal as if it were yesterday. The vividness of the memory is largely because my first days of being a principal were Read More…
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Positive language is a powerful tool for building a calm, safe school climate. The words we use when we talk to students, the intention behind these words, and how we Read More…
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Ask Dr. Nicole Evans Jones what the key is to creating a positive climate for children and she’ll tell you it’s all about the people and their relationships. Sure, the Read More…
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Principal Dennis Copeland had one goal in mind when he decided to survey a group of 200 students in his school over a three-year period:
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Morale can be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. When you walk into a school and everything immediately feels calm, safe, respectful, rich with learning, you know…
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Do elementary educators need to proactively protect their students against cyberbullying? Elizabeth Englander, in her engaging and readable new book Bullying and Cyberbullying: What Every Educator Needs to Know, makes a persuasive…
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Last week, when the national news media picked up a story about a 2nd grader's idea for making recess work better at his school, Roundtown Elementary principal Matthew Miller contacted us right…
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I recently had the pleasure of spending two full days at Garfield Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia, a school that has been using the Responsive Classroom approach for close to ten years.…
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Our appreciation for social media grew quite a bit when we asked "Educators, how was the day?" on the Responsive Classroom Facebook page on Monday afternoon, and over 100 people responded. We…
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Teachers, principals, and other school staff nationwide are thinking about what to do and what to say tomorrow when they and their students return to school in the wake of the horrific…
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"There's a new girl in my class," my grandson told me. "She's from Russia, and she doesn't speak English yet. Her name is Petra, but kids call her 'Comrade Communist.' " It…
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The school bus is a hot spot for bullying, one of the least supervised and least programmed parts of children's school day. With nothing to do and no one to stop them,…
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An adapted excerpt from Chapter One of the award-winning book, How to Bullyproof Your Classroom
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When adults start thinking about bullying prevention, I've noticed we often go right to wondering how to teach children to "stand tall." This idea—that a child who is being bullied can stop…
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Have you watched that video that shows middle school students on a school bus, bullying their bus monitor? I watched it a few days ago. The video is painful, even disgusting, but…
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Did you see the recent news report about a kindergarten teacher who lined her class up and directed each child, in turn, to hit a classmate who'd been accused of bullying other…
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Bullying behaviors go on under our radar. Children report far higher levels of bullying in their classrooms than their teachers do. They see it when we don't. It happens while we're helping…
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Lately I've been thinking a lot about the amazing things teachers do, often almost without thinking. While working on my latest project, a book about behavior challenges, I've been interviewing some experienced…
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Louis announces, "Paul's feet smell, eww." His classmates laugh, and his teacher goes on teaching. "Look at your ugly lunch," "You have on boys' socks," "Your hair is nappy and you'll never…
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Teachers are supposed to have "eyes in the back of our heads." When I was teaching, I believed I did see everything—I certainly thought I knew when children misbehaved. Then, while researching…
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It seems to me sometimes that children's teachers and children's families live on different planets when it comes to the issue of keeping our children safe in school. Personally, I've lived on…
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