Joann's blog

In fifth grade, some of my friends and I created a cipher in order to pass notes in class. It wasn’t a terribly sophisticated cipher, but it was effective enough to foil the class busybody, who constantly scanned the classroom for miscreants. Many years later, I ripped through the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Dancing Men, which reminded me of how much fun codes and ciphers can be. It’s a topic that has a long and interesting history, and instantly captures most students’ attention.

At some point or other, a teacher is bound to hear the dreaded student comment “What good is this? When will I ever need this in life?” When students don’t see how subject matter applies to their personal lives – either now or in the future – they often become disengaged from the material and tune out. It’s a frustrating experience for both teachers and students, and a problem that’s plagued educators for centuries. How can teachers demonstrate the importance and relevance of subject matter to their students?

Special education is a term that covers a large range of student abilities and disabilities. Most special education teachers work with students with mild to moderate disabilities, which allow the students to learn alongside "regular" students in inclusive classrooms. The teachers and aides that work with students with special needs generally modify the existing curriculum in order to meet the student's individual needs. These students may require additional time when completing tasks, as well as adaptations in the way the content is delivered and how work is completed.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures as a kid was to curl up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch cheesy old movies on TV – the cheesier the better. Anything by Ed Wood was good, as well as the early Godzilla movies. My all-time favorite, though, was Gorgo, a monster who emerged from the sea to wreak havoc on anything in its path. The thought of something utterly unknown and foreign under the sea was an irresistible thought as a kid, and something that continues to fascinate me today.

While most students start learning to read maps in early elementary school, more in-depth instruction on how communities are actually designed and constructed are often overlooked. City planning (or urban planning) is the process of designing human settlements, from the smallest of towns to large-scale metropolitan areas. It involves a wide swath of subject areas, including engineering, architecture, economics, geography, sociology, ecology, design, law, and politics. In a nutshell, the goal of city planning is to confirm the orderly development of communities and surrounding regions.

This week we’re very excited to announce that we’re unveiling a new and improved Gateway. While more information on the new features and capabilities of the site will be featured in the future, Peggy and I decided to welcome new Gateway users this week by discussing our respective columns, and what you can expect to find here. So my column this week deviates from its usual format in that I won’t be offering profiles of resources per se; that format will resume next week.

Although the U.S. presidential election is still about a year away, political campaigning is in full swing. Caucuses and primaries begin in January 2012, and will continue through mid-June. Early candidates are busy raising campaign funds, trying to raise their public profiles, and vying with one another to promote their messages and views.

Recently, the G20 Summit was held in Cannes, France to discuss world financial markets and a system of monetary reforms for some troubled European economies. This year, the discussions focused heavily on Greece, whose citizens are rebelling against austerity measures recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to prevent the Greek economy – and quite possibly the world economy – from collapse. While the financial discussions may be a snorefest for many students, it’s vital for them at all grade levels to understand the concept of financial debt and its consequences.

Students rarely feel blasé about modern and contemporary art. Generally speaking, they are either captivated by it or bemused by it – "Geez, I could do that!" is a common response. Whatever their attitude, student reaction to such art is honest and visceral. One byproduct of the "I could do that" attitude towards modern art is that students often find it more accessible and less intimidating than other types of art that stress realism. Less intimidating material tends to allow students to approach the subject with less trepidation and with more tolerance regarding mistakes that can occur when creating their own artwork.

In a small Massachusetts village in 1692, two young girls began having a series of fits that quickly afflicted other girls and young women in the town. Finding no physical cause for the fits, local physicians quickly dubbed it the work of the devil. The girls were thought to be possessed through witchcraft, and they quickly accused three village women of having cast the evil spells. As the news rapidly spread through the New England region, other girls suffered similar afflictions in neighboring towns, and increasingly numbers of women (and some men) were thus accused of witchcraft. In the span of four months, more than 150 people stood accused of witchcraft in the region, and 24 died as a result.