“Teachers focus on their most difficult student. For two minutes day, 10 days in a row, teachers have a personal conversation with the student about anything the student is interested in, as long as the conversation is G-rated.” (Smith and Lambert, 2008, p. 18). Continue reading Building Relational Trust with the Two-by-Ten strategy
All posts by Sophia Bolt
Paying for success
“The social implications of using chemical memory-enhancing drugs in youth and adults are far reaching.” (Philips, 2006, p. 186)
There is no doubt that students in high school today feel immense pressure to perform and succeed. As Philips explains, this pressure may be so great that students turn to drugs to enhance their performance. This is concerning on many levels, two of which I want to mention here. Continue reading Paying for success
Friendship for females only
“We simply don’t believe that boys, especially during adolescence, could be having emotionally intimate male friendships.” (16)
Niobe Way explores the friendships adolescent boys maintain, and often lose as they get older. This loss of deep friendship, or loss of trust among friends, however, is not because boys no longer desire to have these intimate male friendships, but rather because there is societal pressure not to have them. Continue reading Friendship for females only
Creating safe spaces to challenge pressures of masculinity
“The greatest risk factor in school violence is masculinity.”
Writing about school shootings, Kimmel underscores the fact that all the school shootings in the U.S. have been committed by male students. This uniformity, Kimmel explains, cuts across all other differences among the shooters – they come from different backgrounds, such as from intact families, single-parent homes, violent homes, or what appears to be happy families. Yet, the one thing all the school shooters have in common is being male. Kimmel urges us to consider what this means about masculinity in school and how it can manifest into school violence. Continue reading Creating safe spaces to challenge pressures of masculinity
Representations in the classroom
“When the reflected image is generally positive , the individual (adult or child) will be able to a feel that she is worthwhile and competent. When the reflection is generally negative, it is extremely difficult to maintain a coherent sense of self-worth.”
Doucet, F., & Suarez-Orozco, C. (2006) Ethnic identity and schooling: The experience of Haitian immigrant youth. (pp. 168) Continue reading Representations in the classroom