Gone are the days of Socrates, when students in ancient Greece were tested through dialogue and discussion, not multiple choice. In today’s modern world, students (and their schools) in the Charlotte area must be assessed over and over again — sometimes several times a year.
From creating easier forms of communication to providing new avenues for collecting research, computers have quickly become an indispensable part of education for parents, students and school staff.
Director of School Guidance Karen Thomas shares her checklist seniors should follow when preparing for college:
Moving to a new school can be difficult for children, but parents can help ease the transition, according to Donna Henderson, professor of counseling at Wake Forest University and co-author of "The Handbook of School Counseling." "The transition from one school to the next is a point at which children have more opportunities for trouble," says Henderson, whose family moved more than a dozen times before she graduated from high school.
Gone are the days of crib sheets and test answers written on your palm. Today’s students have a much more savvy way to cheat their way through an assignment — modern technology! And this technology brings with it a variety of new problems that schools must contend with.
Each day the routine act of riding a school bus exposes children to a toxic mix of airborne carcinogens and particles from diesel exhaust. Diesel engines have long been known to spew dirty exhaust from their tailpipes, but studies now reveal that levels of diesel pollutants getting inside school buses can be up to four times greater than outside levels.
Student safety has always been a priority for state and local school officials, but the emphasis on keeping our classrooms safe has increased in recent years with the numerous tragic school shootings nationwide.
The 2007-08 school year will be an exciting one for CMS. The district will shift to learning communities as part of our decentralization, and we will begin to put into place some new programs designed to boost student achievement. All of these programs are important ones, and we think they’ll help students learn. But our biggest asset in helping CMS raise student achievement is you — the parents of our students.
The beginning of a new school year can bring many new experiences for children. They may need to become accustomed to an unfamiliar routine, get to know a new teacher or perhaps ride a school bus for the first time. But whether a child is new to the school bus or a seasoned "veteran" in junior high, it’s important for them to know the rules of school bus safety.
It seems like everyone has an opinion about music and its benefits for children. Some say listening to classical music will make your child smarter while others speak about its ability to soothe even the fussiest of infants. All of this could be well and true, but at the very least, an early exposure to great music can create a life-time love affair and appreciation for it.
The school cafeteria has become a place filled with poor diet choices. From franchise fast food offerings to soda machine temptations, today’s kids are faced with a lot of unhealthy options at lunchtime. So, what can parents do? They can pack a better lunch! But many parents could use some help — the typical child’s lunch box is often filled with fat, sugar and salt, and lacking healthy fruit, protein and whole grains.
The Mozart Effect, a 1997 theory by Don Campbell, states that listening to classical music, more specifically, music by Mozart, increases intelligence. Though results are often debated, research continues to support the idea. In 2005, students taking the SAT with prior coursework in music appreciation scored 60 points higher on the verbal and 39 points higher on the math portion of the test.*
School nurses say more can be done in America's classrooms to help prevent the spread of illness, especially at the height of cold and flu season when more than half of school nurses, who were recently surveyed, send five or more sick children home each day.
My interest in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools isn’t just professional. It’s personal, too — my 9-year-old daughter, Katie, is a fourth-grader at Beverly Woods Elementary. It’s important to me and to my wife that our daughter does well in school so she can have a full, productive life as an adult.
We spend a lot of time talking about the challenges we face at CMS. We want to share with our parents and the community how we’re meeting these challenges. But we need to be equally diligent in sharing our success stories.
In a recent New York Times article titled "What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage," Amy Sutherland shares what she has learned from animal trainers in California while researching a book she is writing. "The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging."
Peek around a classroom door at Northwest School of the Arts and see a young dancer perfect her steps. Drop into a classroom at the Smith Language Academy and hear kindergartners receiving classroom instructions in Chinese. Stroll by an open door at Randolph Middle School and catch the sounds of students practicing the Socratic method of inquiry.
Up to 33 percent of all children and teens experience back pain, according to the Pediatric Orthopedic Society of North America. Although there’s little chance a child will suffer permanent injuries from carrying an overloaded backpack, many children do put undue stress on their spines by using bags designed to hold only five or six pounds to support their 15- or even 20-pound loads.
Recently, as I baked cookies with my kids, I watched my 3-year-old lick the plate clean of sprinkles, rather than roll the dough balls in them. It made a classic picture: my little boy Judah looking up mischievously with colored sugar on his face. I reflected on the brevity of this season.
If you’ve been thinking about homeschooling, you’ve no doubt been asked by concerned friends and family: "But how will she make friends?" "He won’t learn any social skills!" The issue of socialization is the most often asked question presented to homeschooling parents.
We asked local homeschooling parents to share with Charlotte Parent readers the activities their children engage in. Here’s what they said:
Whether his patients prefer English or Spanish, Jonathan Guenter has a great bedside manner. A local ER doctor, he’s been bilingual since elementary school — thanks to a decision his parents made more than two decades ago to enroll him in a language immersion program.
Everyone knows teens are preoccupied with Web sites like MySpace and Facebook, but now children as young as 5 have social networking Web sites just for them.
For nearly 250 years, black men, women and children were held as slaves in America. This year, celebrate Black History Month by remembering those who fought for freedom and civil rights.
