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I feel like such a hypocrite writing this minutes after smoothing aloe vera gel on my daughter’s sunburn from a long day at the pool.  Our topic this week on the Gateway is sun safety, and I have not been a good example!  Today’s blunders remind me how valuable it can be to help our students learn from other people’s mistakes, so they don’t have to make every mistake on their own.  I could start a sun safety lesson tomorrow by bringing in my daughter as evidence of the sun’s powerful rays…or by using another primary resource like a video I find online.  There are videos out there showing the consequences of too much sun exposure, and you can find ones that are appropriate for many different age groups.

Movie day!  Students love to be entertained, and teachers love the chance to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief (or tackle that giant pile of grading).  No lectures to take notes on, just a passive viewing of a movie in a nice, dark, cool classroom, right?  I hope not.  I hope we can find simple ways to use movies in class as more than just entertainment.  Instead, movies can engage students and inspire thoughtful, critical thinking about current classroom topics.

“I’m booooooored!”  It’s the sound of the gains made by this year’s students slowly slipping away as they veg out in front of one kind of a screen or another.  Movies and video games will keep our kids entertained and…quiet, but there is no mental challenge to maintain the learning from the school year.  We all need a break, and summer vacation is the perfect time to enjoy some much-deserved relaxation.  A good goal for teachers as summer approaches is to help students and parents find intriguing, fun, and memorable ways to work out their brains all summer long.  Summer should be relaxing, fun, and engaging…not boring at all.

Summer is fast approaching, and your students are probably giddy with the thoughts of sun-kissed days and freedom from the classroom. Of course they – and their teachers – deserve a little downtime from the rigors of the academic year. But is an entire summer of downtime too much of a good thing?

In a world of conversations carried out through short text messages and 140 character Twitter updates, new abbreviations seem to be creeping into the English language as many grammar conventions are going out the window. Smiley faces are being used as a new punctuation mark. Although students are writing more than ever, this writing might not be good grammar practice and it is often teaching them habits that are hard to break. It’s up to K-12 teachers in all subjects to encourage good grammar to prepare students for college and their future careers.

English grammar can be tricky stuff. Students (and many adults) labor over the correct usage of “lie” and “lay,” as well as when to use “who” instead of “whom.” Many of us also have our personal grammar pet peeves – mine happens to be the rampant misuse of apostrophes, as in “The Walton’s welcome you to our home!” or this one from a recent political mailing: “Every state has it’s unique resources.”

The cover of my newest Popular Science announces the 5th annual Inventions of the Year. As I read through some of the ideas, I wonder why I didn’t think of them! The inventions, including a handheld bedbug sniffer, armored stun gloves, and prenatal disease-detecting pens, were mostly developed in peoples’ homes and school laboratories. About half of the featured inventions were created by students, again leading me to wonder how we can inspire students to develop a lifelong drive to create and innovate.

What do Bill Gates, Jay Z, and Martha Stewart all have in common? They’re all highly successful people who started with an idea, raised capital, and grew their own businesses and brands. In short, they’re entrepreneurs.

Growing up, I can remember sitting through quite a few filmstrips in class, trying not to let the buzzing of the reels lull me to sleep, wondering why we were watching it in the first place. Was the teacher just trying to fill the class period with something, since they hadn’t come up with a better plan? Thinking about using documentaries like Freedom Riders from American Experience got me contemplating the value of using movies in the classroom and how teachers can do this most effectively.

The early 1960s was a tumultuous time in modern civilization, and especially in American history. The American presence in Vietnam was rapidly increasing, violent crime statistics rose dramatically, riots blighted many urban areas, and racism was still prevalent in many parts of the country. After the quiet social conformity and conservatism of the 1950s, the upheaval of the sixties shocked many people and brought about a maelstrom of social change.