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One important finding from Moll and colleagues’ study is that the people with whom children interacted possessed a multidimensional understanding of a child. They report:

Thus, the “teacher” in these home based contexts of learning will know the child as a “whole” person, not merely as a “student,” taking into account or having knowledge about the multiple spheres of activity within which the child is enmeshed. In comparison, the typical teacher–student relationships seem “thin” and “single- stranded,” as the teacher “knows” the students only from their performance within rather limited classroom contexts. (pp. 133–134)

These teacher-learners were intent on learning from and with families, creating a two-way stream of communication that centered the experiences of their students’ households. Students were not separate from their communities. This intention, and the actions of home visits and observations of students’ family networks, established a level of trust with families that helped create a

Have you heard about Dollars & Decisions? It’s a free “Choose Your Own Adventure”–style interactive course designed to introduce basic financial literacy to students in grades 8-12. Before you have your students play it, you’re going to want to check out our Dollars & Decisions Teacher Guide. We’ll show you how to set your class up for success and get the most out of this awesome course. 

What’s the interactive course all about?

The idea behind Dollars & Decisions is to educate students about basic personal finance in critical areas (bank accounts, saving for immediate needs and for the future, and how to manage credit) to give them the knowledge and confidence to manage their money.

The course is set up to reflect a young adult’s life. Players share an apartment with two roommates, choose a job, and have to budget for rent, utilities, and other expenses, based

by Terry Heick

You try to fake it, but it limps right out of your mouth, barely alive: “How was school?”

You might use a slight variation like, “What’d you learn in school today?” but in a single sentence, all that is wrong with ‘school.’

First, the detachment–you literally have no idea what they’re learning or why. (You leave that up to school because that’s what school’s for, right?) Which means you know very little about what your children are coming to understand about the world, only able to speak about it in vague terms of content areas (e.g., math, history).

Then, there’s the implication–they don’t talk about the way that they’ve been moved or impressed upon or changed but in the rarest cases; you have to drag it out of them.

And there’s also the matter of form–you ask them as if a developing learner will be able to

Three hundred years later, post-war parents were powerless against the threat of nuclear attack but could control whether their children ate enough servings of fruits, vegetables, bread, and dairy each day. Parents in the 1970s and 1980s seem, from today’s vantage point, irrationally obsessed with a fear of kidnapping, which may reflect a more deep-seated worry about whether the entry of women into the workforce was a form of child abandonment. The tendency for parents today to control their children’s time via over-scheduling of “enrichment” activities could be interpreted as a response (rational or irrational) to concerns about child safety, especially in light of the potential dangers lurking on nearby screens. The more likely drive toward the “concerted cultivation” of children, however, is a fear response to economic anxieties. The current generation of parents is the first to have less overall wealth, on average, than the preceding generation of parents.

Holiday parties with 17 different forms of sugar. Every concert, performance, and program known to man. Candy canes sharpened into stabby weapons.

That’s right, y’all. It’s the week before winter break.

This week can feel like a roller coaster whipping teachers between feeling festive and celebratory one minute and utterly exhausted the next. These TikTok teachers have boiled down all the competing emotions and various stressors of this time of year and packaged them into perfect little clips for us. What a gift!

This pre-K teacher and the week-before-break conversations with littles

@mrwilliamsprek

Only one day left before winter break, fellow teachers! We got this! We can do it! #teachersoftiktok #teacherlife #teacher #teacherhumor #winterbreak

♬ Jingle Bell Rock – Bobby Helms

I haven’t taught pre-K before, but Mr. Williams made me feel like I had. And I need a nap just from watching.

This teacher who somehow channeled every

What Is The Internet Of Things? A One-Sentence Definition

by TeachThought Staff

For those who just came for the definition, the internet of things is the connection of smart electronic devices in our daily lives.

For the sake of simplicity, think of the phrase not in its entirety–the internet of things–but rather by stressing the last word: the internet of things.

Examples Of The Internet Of Things

A few examples of the ‘things’ that make up the internet of things as we know it today include:

• smart automotive technology
• smart thermostats
• smart televisions
• smart refrigerators
• smart garages
• smart lights
• smart curtains

Notice the word ‘smart’ prefacing everything? Eventually, that distinction won’t be necessary. In many countries and cities anyway (who knows how the planet ultimately will and won’t ‘develop’), the expectation will likely simply be that all ‘things’ be ‘smart.’

How Does The Internet Of Things Work?