The bigger structural changes many hoped would be a silver lining from the pandemic didn’t happen. However, parents and teachers undoubtedly learned some important lessons that can be used to address learning loss and improve in-person school for everyone this Fall. Here are the top things we learned that are (a) also consistent with science and (b) readily…
by Nancy Weinstein, CEO of Mindprint Learning Author’s Note: After working with parents, teachers, administrators (and my own children!) this Spring and Summer on remote school, I’ve discovered this top 5 list is essential for all students regardless of their Mindprint profile. Keep in mind that remote learning requires an even greater level of parent-teacher partnership. Parents…
Time for reflection is one of the luxuries of summer. Reflection is such a crucial aspect of learning. From Labor Day to Memorial Day, most of us are guilty of not taking the time to think carefully about what we saw, learned and experienced and consider how it might help us grow or change. Those relaxing afternoons in the…
By Mindprint Staff Sunday morning on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd turned to his bi-partisan panel debating over what outrageous remark might knock Trump out of contention. He posed the question, “What if everything we thought was his weakness is actually a strength?” And then he went to commercial. Not a bad move for live TV when you…
By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Earlier this week, I went to a screening of American Promise, a documentary that follows the path of two middle class African-American boys through The Dalton School of New York. The next day, I read Otis Lawrence Graham’s article “The Rules: making sense of race and privilege,” in my husband’s…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff What does it take to get into college? For that matter, preschool? Two recent stories in The New York Times address changes in the admissions process for some schools and both look at efforts to take the focus off standardized tests. First, there was the attention-grabbing headline: “Private Schools are Expected…
By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Disney World is probably a bit crowded this time of year, but that’s not the reason some school districts have decided to bring the themes of the company to their own communities. We’re not talking about riding the spinning teacups, we’re talking about customer relations and morale. According to the…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff Tradition. My family does not have a lot of it, to be honest, so the events at school that fall under that category, are interesting to me. And if there was ever a season for traditions it seems spring is it. The only one I remember from my own elementary school…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff I was amazed to read that Stanford’s six Massively Open On-line Courses, or MOOC’s, reached over 300,000 people. But it wasn’t until last week that I realized the MOOC, or a future incarnation of it, would most likely be part of my daughters’ experiences, even if they weren’t pursuing something in…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff Decisions won’t be announced until mid to late February, but Emma feels certain that her daughter won’t get into any of the schools to which they’ve applied. There are more than four times as many applicants as there are slots; she doesn’t “know anyone”; and she hasn’t waged a letter writing…