Archive for April 8, 2015
Character Education — What We Can Learn from the Atlanta Public Schools
The April 1 guilty verdicts for 11 former teachers and administrators in the Atlanta Public Schools were hardly a fool’s joke. In what The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) called “one of the most notorious” scandals to ever befall a public school system, the educators conspired to correct student answers on the mandatory Criterion-Referenced Competency Test…
Read MoreMuch Ado About Nothing? — Stress and the College Search Sweepstakes
While the challenge of “senior spring” has received ample attention (“The Waiting Game,” “6 Ways to Maximize Spring Semester of Senior Year” and “Already Gone” come to mind), less so may be the rigor of the two semesters that precede it. Junior spring and senior fall define the circus that has become the college search…
Read MoreGirlhood — Girls, Puberty and “Self”
The Oscar-nominated film “Boyhood” offers a rambunctious tour inside the life and times of Mason Evans, Jr., actually tracking the real-time coming of age of actor Ellar Coltrane (IMBD, 2014). While rife with the familiar conflicts and conquests of growing up as a boy, the film also tracks the identity search of Mason’s sister, Samantha…
Read MoreThey Will Follow — Positive Peer Pressure or Influence
Research from SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) revealed that parents are the number one reason why young people make good choices. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the same research pegs peers as the number one reason why they make bad choices. Perhaps the best news of all is that peers are…
Read MoreRunning On — Physical, Emotional and Social Lives
Girls are on the run. But what are they running from? Or to? That’s what I wanted to know, so I asked Cheryl Stumpf, executive director of the Greater Susquehanna Valley Council (PA) of the national Girls on the Run organization and a counselor and outreach coordinator at the Susquehanna University Counseling Center. Here’s what…
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