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"Of Particular Interest" Archives

PBS PICKS TEACHER INNOVATORS
In this press release, read details (and see video) about the top 10 teachers recently honored by the Public Broadcasting System for their innovative teaching. The group includes three teachers in the middle grades, but you'll find easily adaptable innovations from other grade levels, including Robert Schechter's "An Author You Can't Refuse," a writing strategy he employs with ELL and mainstream students. PBS has featured nearly 200 middle level teachers over the course of this awards program, so be sure to explore the Gr. 6-8 dropdown menu at the innovation gallery.

THE POWER OF FACEBOOK FOR LEARNING
Middle grades teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron offers examples of how the Facebook social media tool can be adapted for student and teacher learning (if the IT folks will let you) -- including a Tucson science teacher's idea to let students combine community service, the scientific method, and viral communication. Wolpert-Gawron (known as TweenTeacher in blog world) also describes how a group of teachers are using Facebook to raise their voices about policy issues that impact the classroom.

ATTRACTING URBAN YOUTH TO AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS
This research report, first published by the Teachers College Record, uncovers several qualities of after-school programs that help them not only attract urban youth but keep them coming back. These qualities, the authors say, are critical factors in positive adolescent development: supportive relationships with adults and peers; safety, and opportunities to learn.

HISTORY: THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE
Teachers will find resources and inspiration at this online companion to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery exhibition "The Struggle for Justice." Included are six video clips narrated by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, and a gallery section featuring portraits of many individuals who were instrumental in fighting for justice and equal opportunity in the United States. There's also a lesson plan with a list of outside resources.

TRIANGLES FROM THREE SIDES
Although geometry is not usually associated with middle school math, says the intro to this resource at the Middle School Portal community, "teachers are increasingly asked to introduce the subject informally. Triangles from Three Sides includes topics that you may want to investigate further, such as proof and similarity, in introducing your students to geometry." The three sides in the title are: Triangles as Geometric Figures, Triangles at Work, and Triangles in the Limelight. (Famous triangles, that is.)

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SUCCEED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL?
Teacher Magazine blogger Susan Graham challenges (or ho-hums) some of the findings in the recent EdSource report "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades." The Virginia middle school educator finds little new in the policy recommendations, which she dissects from the point of view of a veteran nationally certified teacher. Most of the report's solutions, she says, have been around for decades without producing much large-scale improvement. Graham suggests that if reformers want to craft change that will stick in real schools, they need to ask teachers to become partners in the research - not just serve as the lab mice. Her blog post was highlighted in several large circulation e-newsletters last week, including Accomplished Teacher.

SCIENCE: SOIL SUPERHEROES
Check out this great video at the Edutopia site – it highlights the Soil Superheroes Project carried out by seventh graders at King Middle School who worked with community experts to advance their understanding of bacteria in the environment. You'll also find print resources prepared by students and teachers at the Portland Maine school that will help other schools pursue project learning. See, for example, this six-step rubric that offers "guiding principles to pull together projects with the time and resources you have."

VOICES OF LATINO MIDDLE SCHOOLERS
In this collection of writing and media from middle school Latino/a students in Austin, Los Angeles, and Oakland, the concepts of "place, identity, and culture rule." Brought together by What Kids Can Do and the National Council of La Raza as part of a service-learning project, the young authors fight stereotypes, share what makes them who they are, explore their communities, and imagine some facets of the world they want to help create. "From start to finish," says WKCD director Barbara Cervone, "students talked about the key concerns they want to address as leaders. Safe families in caring communities. Respect and equity for their ethnic groups. High expectations. Healthy food options. A passionate desire to contribute in positive ways." An excellent launching pad for your own school or classroom projects.

MAY IN HISTORY: AWESOME STORIES
This link leads to a collection of videos at the Awesome Stories website highlighting important historical events that took place during the month of May. Scroll down just a bit and find the U2 incident and the first American in space; the Hindenburg and Lusitania disasters; the trial and death of Joan of Arc; Samuel Morse, Albert Einstein and Leonardo DaVinci, and plenty more. Subscribe to Awesome Stories at no cost for extra features; it's a super repository of engaging history video - and text stories with primary source links.

GUIDE TO ONLINE ED RESOURCES
This New York Times guide was a top-clicked story for the ASCD SmartBrief newsletter during a recent week. The NYT describes it best, not surprisingly: "Thousands of pieces of free educational material - videos and podcasts of lectures, syllabuses, entire textbooks - have been posted in the name of the open courseware movement. But how to make sense of it all? Businesses, social entrepreneurs and 'edupunks,' envisioning a tuition-free world untethered by classrooms, have created Web sites to help navigate the mind-boggling volume of content." The article highlights six such sites, where you'll find not only help for your classroom but for your personalized professional development needs.

EVALUATING TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS
This 2009 resource, A Practical Guide to Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness, was prepared by three researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the federally funded National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality. It includes the authors' definition of "teacher effectiveness" and an overview of the many purposes for evaluating teachers. The guide also describes "which measures are most suitable to use under different circumstances," including value-added models, classroom observations, analysis of classroom artifacts (e.g., lesson plans and student work) and portfolios. Of interest to anyone who supports more nuanced teacher evaluation using multiple measures.

FOUND MATH
We'll leave it to the math teachers to decide whether there's useable classroom content at this gallery of "found" math images. But we're pretty sure the teachers will enjoy it - what math nerd can resist a "hexagon, rhombus, circle, and cube, all in one"? It's a whimsical project of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), with items as simple as a butterfly that appears to have an "88" on its wing to objects that require some explanation. Many have poster potential. What if your students found images to submit? How exciting would it be to have one accepted?

REVERSING "READICIDE"
"Schools have become unwitting coconspirators in the decline of reading." That's the argument made by teacher Kelly Gallagher in his widely discussed 2009 book Readicide. In this recent article from Educational Leadership, Gallagher defines four barriers that must be overcome to repair the damage he believes has been caused by the pressure to improve scores on high-stakes tests. Public education, he says, is in a "reading recession" - but "I believe that the critical thinkers we so desperately need will emerge from classrooms where teachers have eschewed the coverage approach in favor of fostering deeper thinking." Also see this Sustained Silent Reading chat.

POLICY WONKS WANT TO FIX YOU
Last year the National Journal began a blogging project that quickly attracted some of the most noted education policy commentators in the US. This "panel of insiders" regularly tackles topics considered "hot" -- and in late February, the hot issue was "What Can Be Done for Middle Schools?" The many ideas about how to "fix" the middle grades included a notable post by scholar Diane Ravitch, author of the best-selling Death and Life of the Great American School System, who wrote: "One of the big problems in middle schools is the absence of a genuine, coherent, substantive curriculum... Adolescents are idealistic and hungry to explore a wider world. Schools should engage their hearts and minds with great ideas, great adventures in science, history, and literature, and great experiences in the arts, and stop prying them with pap. No wonder they are bored and restless." Ouch.

HELP ELL STUDENTS BECOME CO-CREATORS
California teacher Larry Ferlazzo's popular teaching resources blog began with a strong focus on teaching English Language Learners -- then exploded into one of the best general resources for teachers across the K-12 spectrum. An ELL teacher himself, Larry distills his key ideas for helping non-native English speakers succeed in school in this recent article for Teacher Magazine, on the eve of the publication of his new book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work. He proposes that the best way to empower ELL students as they master English is to abandon the "deficit model" common in many schools and develop their self-efficacy and leadership skills.

HIGH STAKES: ADDRESSING VOCABULARY GAPS
Blogger Ariel Sacks has come up with "a nice trick for teaching vocabulary and critical thinking" to the eighth graders in her Brooklyn NY classroom. "We've been gearing up for the NY state middle school ELA exam, and I realized my students' vocabulary gaps were hurting them on the multiple choice part.  Sometimes, for example, they comprehended the text--and know how to use context clues to guess meanings of words they don't know--but didn't know the meaning of a key word in one of the multiple choice answers. Those answers have no context, so they ended up choosing the wrong one. I felt the need to do some explicit vocabulary work to try to improve their chances." Read on for Sacks' strategy.

WHAT SHOULD A MEDIA SPECIALIST BE?
What should an administrator expect a school library media specialist to be? That's the question answered by author and elementary media specialist Carl Harvey in this nicely formatted one-page handout, suitable for sharing with your principal, your teacher colleagues, or perhaps your own media specialist. In these budget-cutting times, maybe a mailout to the school board would be in order as well? Without giving it all away, we'll hint that among the roles identified by Harvey (author of The 21st Century Elementary Library Program) are communicator, innovator, collaborator and technology integrator. The roles Harvey describes make perfect sense at the middle level, too.

AN ARCHIVE THAT STORES HOPE
We've highlighted the Middle School Archive Project in Dallas TX several times since it launched in 2005. It's a "stay in school" strategy that's the brainchild of Bill Betzen, a tech teacher at Quintanilla Middle School. The idea is simple: eighth graders write letters to themselves to be opened 10 years in the future, which include imagined achievements in their lives. At a 10th-year class reunion students will revisit their archived letters and reflect on the course they've taken. Although the project is only in its sixth year, Betzen has data to suggest it's already influencing graduation rates. During a visit to Dallas, National TOY Tony Mullen wrote about the Quintanilla project, which he called "an archive that stores hope." Mullen's evocative writing style is always a pleasure to read. And here's a direct link to the Archive project site.

10 WAYS TO STUDY THE SUPREME COURT
This popular collection of lesson plans from the New York Times Learning Network was updated recently after the news of Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement plans. Designed with students in mind, it includes not only activities that help students learn about the court's inner workings but also about legal decisions that directly affected young people, including a fifth grader's protest of school uniforms.

THINKING ABOUT ED VIDEO GAMES
Tom DeRosa doesn't play video games much. But after spending his winter break "sick as a dog" on the couch playing with his dad's X-Box, he came to this conclusion: "(E)verything we need to make paradigm-shifting educational video games that kids will actually play has already been created. Instead of starting from scratch, educators need to team up with innovative video game studios and merely tweak the powerful learning-based game models that already exist." DeRosa, a math and social studies teacher who's taught in TX and MA, enumerates the good teaching practices that the best video games emulate. His comments appear in the Educational Games Research blog -- a good place to keep up with developments in the promising but slow-to-grow fields of ed gaming and virtual worlds.

RETHINKING TEACHER ROLES
Are we entering an era when the job of "teacher" no longer looks pretty much the same across the school, year after year? Are today's young teachers too restless and independent-minded to be satisified with flat career trajectories? Probably so, says this recent article in ASCD's Education Update newsletter, which draws on a "thought paper" from Learning Points Associates to explore a likely trend toward differentiated or "hybrid" teacher roles in the next decade. Also see this related and somewhat more provocative post at the blog Advancing the Teaching Profession.

READING: GROUPED WITH THE DINOSAURS
When Cris Tovani – author of Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? – was assigned to the less-proficient group for her school's annual technology training, she faced up to some challenges her struggling readers also face. Through leveling, she wondered, do teachers inadvertently send a message that limits effort and therefore the potential for success? Tovani came away with four insights and a plan to make grouping work better. You'll find them all in this March 2010 article from Educational Leadership.

TEACH STUDENTS TO SEARCH SMART
Can there be a more important role for the 21st century teacher than to help students "find the truth in a sea of factoids"? And "sea" may not be a big enough metaphor for the Web. How about galaxy? This recent article at the Edutopia site descibes the work of Alan C. Miller, a former investigative reporter at the L.A. Times who now helps middle and high school students discern fact from fiction and hyperbole through the News Literacy Project. While the article offers some good tips, you'll also want to follow the link to the Project's own site, where you'll learn about an effort to establish similar programs around the USA.

MONEY: THE MATHEMATICS OF FINANCE
Finance, says the set-up for this new Middle School Portal guide, "depends on a multitude of math skills: arithmetic operations, reading and interpreting graphs, algebraic thinking, probability, and basic statistics. At the fundamental level, these skills are covered thoroughly in the middle school curriculum--although often not in the context of everyday living." The challenge is to immerse students in financial scenarios that connect to their real worlds. The resources, all aligned with NCTM standards, begin with money itself, its invention and history, followed by a selection of problems and "full-blown lesson ideas."

SCIENCE FAIR 2.0
A fresh Middle School Portal resource is always good news. I love Jessica Fries-Gaither's opener to this great resource: "I have a confession to make: I hate science fairs." She avoided them for many years, but "the importance of inquiry-based learning kept drawing me back to the topic." Maybe, she concluded, "the mechanics just needed revamping." That done, she's now prepared to help others expand the notion of a science fair "to encompass a much wider and more flexible range of possibilities." It's time, she says, to "move past the volcanoes and studies of plants in light and darkness to real kids, real data, and real questions."

TEACHER-FRIENDLY TECH TOOLS
We're agreeing with the ASCD Inservice blog: "When the advice is good and the price is right, what's not to like?" The site is Free Technology for Teachers, and it's the brainchild of Richard Byrne, a high school social studies teacher who not only reviews the latest online web tools but suggests ideas about how teachers might build them into their instruction. If there's a slight bias in the direction of history, we shouldn't be surprised, but 15,000 subscribers will testify that much of what Byrne has to offer applies to most content areas.

SCHOOL CREATES PERSONALIZED LEARNING PLANS
"Public schools have long offered their students the same basic academic program," writes New York Times reporter Winnie Hu, "with little real choice aside from foreign languages or an occasional elective in what was a one-size-fits-all approach that drove many families to seek private and charter schools." That's changing at New Jersey's Linwood Middle School this year, where all 428 sixth graders "are charting their own academic path with personalized student learning plans - electronic portfolios containing information about their learning styles, interests, skills, career goals and extracurricular activities."

CLASSROOM GAMES CAN IMPROVE ACHIEVEMENT
Before anyone passes off this resource as too frivolous in a standards-driven school climate, we hasten to note it's authored by "What Works" guru Robert Marzano. "I have been involved in more than 60 studies conducted by classroom teachers on the effects of games on student achievement," Marzano wrote in a recent Educational Leadership article. "These studies showed that, on average, using academic games in the classroom is associated with a 20 percentile point gain in student achievement." We're not talking Nintendo here, but games modeled on popular shows like Jeopardy, Family Feud or Pyramid. Before you don your Alex Trebek mask: Marzano found teachers get much higher gains from games by following four key practices. Click above to find out which ones.

WEB TOOLS: RESOURCES FOR COLLABORATION
Bringing groups of students and teachers together in your school (or from across the nation and the world) is really pretty simple these days. Here's a list of 20 of the best current web tools for collaboration in education, compiled by Howie DiBlasi, a former IT director for the Durango School District in Colorado, for NMSA's Middle Ground magazine. Among his favorites: Curriki, ThinkQuest, WiZiQ, Storytelling Alice, and GlogsterEDU. DiBlasi includes a brief descriptor for each plus a super resource site where you can look for more. We'll suggest a new one: LearnCentral (which includes a free 3-way live conferencing feature).

MIDDLE & HIGH SCHOOL COLLABORATION
Many principals and district leaders talk about "vertical articulation" between middle and high school leaders and faculties -- but how many actually get beyond the "we should try that sometime" stage? This feature at the NASSP website provides the details of six serious collaborations around the United States. The information was compiled to accompany an article by former MS principal Maureen Furr who reflects on her own misperceptions about high schools, which she discovered after accepting a HS principalship. The stereotypes, of course, cut both ways, which is why true cross-level collaboration can be so powerful. You'll find a link to Furr's article at the end of this page of examples. (Here's an idea - use a tool in the resource above this one to start some collaboration of your own.)

QUICK RESOURCE: VOCABULARY UNIVERSITY
This popular free service, used in many schools, recently changed domains, so it's a good time for us to mention it again. Also known as "My Vocabulary," the site offers thematic puzzles (across many content areas), vocabulary lesson plans, specialized word lists, and the all-important test prep for SAT/ACT. A basic tool for any vocabulary-minded teacher's kit.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING IN SCIENCE
"We're in the middle of my first big digital storytelling project that incorporates ocean surface currents," middle grades teacher Marsha Ratzel wrote recently in her blog "Reflections of a Techie." And it's been a blast, she says. "Imagine how delighted I am to hear two girls huddled over in the corner talking like rubber ducks while they explain how the Gulf Stream moved these ducks around the ocean. They had no idea how cute they were and how delighted I was that they'd found a way to combine fun, science and digital storytelling." Ratzel goes on to explain each "chunk" of the project, which she "chopped into bite-sized pieces.” This link leads to a page with all three of Ratzel's posts about her project. Feel free to strike up a chat with Marsha in the blog's comments.

TEACHING MATH TO ELL AND SPECIAL STUDENTS
The Mathematics Improvement Toolkit offers resources and professional development materials designed to support teachers as they help ELL and special education students master high-level mathematics. Teachers can use the Toolkit (developed with a USDOE grant) to both deepen conceptual understanding of middle grades math and identify the most effective practices to teach concepts to students. Teachers may want to begin exploring by clicking on the "Tools" menu on the far right of the top navigation bar.

KEEPING WONDER IN THE CURRICULUM
Our friend and Teacher Leaders Network colleague Susan Graham is a middle grades FACS teacher in Virginia, a regional VA TOY and NBCT, and a featured blogger at Teacher Magazine. I really enjoyed her recent meditation on the current exhibit of the 2,000-year old Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors at the National Geographic Museum in D.C. "What if," she writes, "with the best intentions, we do such a good job of keeping our children focused on what we think they ought to know that we forget to inspire them to wonder about what they don't know?"

WHY SOME MIDDLE SCHOOLS DO BETTER
A new report, Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better, is garnering some serious national attention. While the 18-month study focused on CA schools, many findings have general application. EdSource and Stanford University researchers set out to answer the question: "What district and school policies and practices are linked to higher student performance in the middle grades?" The 18-month process included surveys of more than 4,000 California teachers, principals, and superintendents about a wide range of middle grades practices. "The major contribution of this study," say the authors, "is the set of inter-related, actionable practices that middle grades educators and leaders can implement now by making smart, strategic choices." At this page you can download a press release, a narrative summary, or the full report.

GOTTA KEEP READING
We're beginning to think this is "The Year to Rally around Book Reading." A teacher friend (math - not English!) sent along this TeacherTube clip of an Oprah-like "flashmob" at Ocoee Middle (a Florida demonstration school) celebrating the joys of reading. "What a breath of fresh air on the eve of starting our math state assessment tests," she wrote. "It's exactly the antidote I needed to signing honesty pledges, taking hours of training on how to proctor exams, and worrying endlessly about how well my students will do on the TEST." Our frazzled friend shared it with her students - maybe you will too. Or stage your own?

TEACHERS OBSERVING TEACHERS? NOT SO MUCH
Why do so few American teachers observe each other teach, when such practices are common in other nations? Good question from eighth grade teacher Ariel Sacks, who blogs at "On the Shoulders of Giants." She's not naïve about the reasons, of course. History, trust, art vs. science, the energy that different observers bring into the room are all factors, she believes. Sacks draws her data from the new 2009 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, where less than one-third of teachers or principals reported frequent teacher-to-teacher observation in their schools. Be sure to also peruse the pithy comments from her readers, who include several staff developers.

WHAT IF PARENTS WERE PARTNERS
Not long ago I got an "I need help" note from Jacque, a parent & community resource person in a sizeable midwestern school district. She wrote that "The numbers drastically drop of families attending conferences in middle school -- at a time which such conferences might be needed even more than in elementary." It's a common problem across middle-school America. Some of the smartest advice I've heard comes in an interview I did recently with teacher Larry Ferlazzo, the author of a new book (and blog) on parent engagement. Larry's approach matches up well with my other favorite book on the subject, Beyond the Bake Sale by Anne Henderson. Both Larry and Anne argue that middle school leaders who really want parents engaged have to make them equal partners. Many educators don't seem willing to go that far. Here's a link to the Henderson book - note all the free resources in the right margin. And visit our MiddleWeb Blog tag "parents & families" to see dozens of resources we've shared in the past.

ETHNO-MATHEMATICS
"Math is not usually treated as a subject with a cultural context," says a teacher in this news story about teaching "ethno-mathematics" in middle school. In this example, it's Mayan Math. Here's a link to some details about Mesoamerican mathematics at the Math Forum. A google search will turn up lots more.

NEW TEACHERS: BRIGHT AND UNCONTROLLABLE KIDS
Novice teacher C.W. Arp writes about "that fatal combination [of a student with] severe emotional disequilibrium and remarkable intellectual ability." In this two-part post at the Gotham Schools blog, Arp describes the different approaches of two teachers he's observed: one who does not allow students to go off task and only recognizes students who raise their hands; and another who allows frustration, jokes and mistakes to become a part of the learning experience. He agrees with the second teacher's approach but confesses that his fear of student outbursts leads him to teach like the first.

LITERACY AND THE INTERNET
A new survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project distills the views of 900 "internet stakeholders" on several key questions about the future, including "Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?" Two-thirds of the experts say the internet has and will continue to enhance these skills. Surprised? The report is well worth investigation by educators, as is another recent study on wireless internet use, which shows that mobile technologies are having a significant narrowing effect on the Digital Divide.

FIELD-TEST NEW HEALTH/SCIENCE GAME
Drug Scene Investigators, an online science/heath game for grades 7-10, engages students in solving mysteries "caused by unknown illegal drugs as they search the library, take notes, link discovered information with facts, and reason from the evidence to form conclusions." The game, developed with a grant from the National Institutes of Heath, not only educates students about drugs but promotes critical thinking and inquiry skills, the authors say. DSI is currently undergoing a national evaluation and the designers are looking for teachers to take part. Eligible teachers receive $50 for their first participating class and $25 for each additional class. Visit the link above to find out more and try out a demo of the game.

INQUIRY SCIENCE: BIRD SLEUTH
Bird Sleuth is a fee-based science inquiry curriculum developed by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, for grades 5-8. Since it's our policy not to highlight resources that must be paid for (other than our sole advertiser's excellent books!), we were glad to find this no-cost module that "includes lesson plans, journal pages, and online resources that will help your students ask scientific questions, craft and test hypotheses, collect and organize data, draw meaningful conclusions, and publish their work." If you get excited about the materials, you may want to make an investment.

MEDIA IN THE LIVES OF MIDDLE SCHOOLERS
The amount of time children 8-18 spent with media increased by an hour and seventeen minutes a day over the past five years, from 6:21 in 2004 to 7:38 today. And because of media multitasking, the total amount of media content consumed during that period has effectively increased from 8:33 in 2004 to 10:45 hours today. These data are among the many interesting (and potentially disturbing) facts found in the new report from the Kaiser Foundation, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds. After you read the report (or while you're reading it, smile), a good companion is the PBS Frontline Digital Nation site, where you can view a recent documentary on the impact of multi-tasking, read commentary about the Kaiser report, and contribute to a dialog about what learning is becoming on the digital frontier.

THE CASE FOR LITERATURE
Nancie Atwell's powerful statement on the contribution book-reading makes to student achievement is a must-read not only for teachers of English but for all educators who know from experience that sustained independent reading builds "fluency, stamina, vocabulary, confidence, critical abilities, habits, tastes and comprehension." Atwell worries that the Common Core State Standards Initiative, "dominated by test-makers and politicians," will devalue the young adult literature that helps teens understand more about themselves and young people "unlike themselves" -- literature that often serves as a bridge to the best adult fiction. (Education Week)

VIDEO ADVICE FOR NEW TEACHERS
There's a good no-cost video series at Teacher TV featuring Sue Cowley, a former teacher turned behavior management expert. Cowley is British and the series is filmed in British schools, so it feels a bit like The Nanny reality show. But that's a good thing -- and as you'll quickly see, kids act pretty much the same everywhere. "The enemy is not the kids but anything that gets in the way of them learning," Cowley believes. Among the topics: Starting the school day right; keeping a cool head in class; creating a good set of rules; managing group work; and establishing routines. Each clip is about 15 minutes long, and you'll see a mix of age groups, K-8. Also check out Teaching with [John] Bayley, who works with teachers in the upper grades. See "Too Much Talk," for example.

IS PHYS ED AN NCLB CASUALTY IN YOUR SCHOOL?
Quoting CDC statistics, educator and newspaper columnist Tammy Sjoberg reports that only 3.8 percent of elementary schools, 7.9 percent of middle schools and 2.1 percent of high schools offer daily physical education. Sjoberg, a PE and health teacher at St Joseph Middle School in Appleton WI, notes that while phys ed is mandated in most states, there are no repercussions for schools that don't comply. "One of the main reasons why physical education has been left to die is due to the No Child Left Behind Act," Sjoberg contends. "Because this law focused on core subjects such as reading and math and threw dollars that way based on standardized test results, it left physical education (as well as classes that focus on the arts) vulnerable." But we wonder -- are there middle schools that refuse to let go of PE? Comment at our MW blog.

TEACHING WITH ANALOGIES
Marsha Ratzel teaches middle grades math and science - why should she be interested in a book about teaching with metaphors and analogies? For one thing, analogies can help students grasp difficult or unfamiliar concepts in her content areas. For another, once kids develop the skill of finding their own analogies, "they will start connecting the 'likeness' in unlike things between and within disciplines." Read Ratzel's review of the recent Rick Wormeli book Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject and find out why she says it's "taught me more than any education book I've read in the last 10 years."

LEADERSHIP: WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO LEARN?
Educator Mike Muir has written extensively about the most effective ways to engage middle grades students in learning. In a new essay for NASSP's Middle Level Leader e-newsletter, Muir writes of his own journey "to better understand how we truly could meet the learning needs of more students." His research "helped me transition from the rhetoric in my head that said, 'students should learn more, it's their job,' and 'let's hold students accountable,' to the realization that a much more productive rhetoric was 'why would they want to?'" An excellent and provocative question which Muir sets out to answer. ALSO SEE: Nashville's plan to engage MS'ers.

HELP STUDENTS COMMUNICATE IN MATH CLASS
You'll find solid tips on encouraging and supporting math talk in this brief piece by well-known mathematics teacher Kay Toliver. In fact, much of Toliver's advice applies to any content area -- it's really about smart teaching. Perhaps it's just that Toliver suspects fewer math teachers encourage regular student discussions about what the kids are trying to learn? It's a hurry-up world out there.

TEACHER'S GUIDE TO GEN X PARENTS
We were surprised and fascinated by this article in the February issue of Edutopia, subtitled "How to work with well-meaning but demanding moms and dads." The proposition is that parents born in the Generation X period (roughly 1965 to 1979) have unique behavioral characters -- shaped by the social tides of the period when they grew up — that need to be understood by teachers who are now educating their children. While some readers found the author a bit aggressive, there are quite a few comments from teachers in the Baby Boomer, X and Y generations indicating "aha" moments while reading it. Can't hurt!

AWESOME RESOURCE: FEDERAL RESOURCES FOR ED EXCELLENCE
If you haven't yet spotted an item that intrigues you, here's an excellent general teacher resource from the MiddleWeb archives that deserves repeat attention from time to time. The Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) website is an absolutely amazing repository of teacher resources and tools, and since we last highlighted it, they've added a Twitter feed.

A FRESH LOOK AT INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
In this Edutopia video clip, teaching scholar Linda Darling Hammond sorts though all the international student assessment data and makes the case that education policymakers in the U.S. need to shift their focus to actions that support the teaching of higher order thinking and problem-solving, if we expect to compete in the global economy. In her new book The Flat World and Education, Darling Hammond describes a system of respectful teacher development and support that recognizes the central role of the highly trained teacher in success for all students. "This is very eye-opening," wrote one teacher commenter. "She is very clear and is not presenting some new trendy reform for improvement but excellent observations, relying on the foundation of data." (9 minutes)

ADVICE TO NEW TEACHERS - FROM A STUDENT
Kelsi Bryant is a 10th grader at award-winning Marvin Ridge High School in Union County, NC. After reading an archived new-teacher discussion at our MiddleWeb site, Kelsi was moved to prepare some notes for new middle school teachers, from a student point of view. Kelsi says she has grown up in a family of teachers and "I am aware of many different teaching styles. I am no teacher, it is true. But in my 10 and a half years of being a student I have had lots of good teachers; and lots of bad teachers too. I want to to share some things that my good teachers did." Click above to see what Kelsi had to say.