Curriculum is not ultimately what makes the class. It is the intersection between the teacher and the student that makes the class. Placing curriculum first breaks that intersection.

Systems need to have built into them the mechanisms by which they can evolve in response to the naturally occurring stresses of a learning community. Facilitating that evolution demands that we respect the custodians of that system enough to empower them to shape the system. This was a status to which we had not yet been exalted as teachers at Brick. But to be fair, I rarely see teachers exalted to that status anywhere. This, incidentally, is the kind of evolving, self-perfecting system that we are working to build at Project GENIUS.

When teachers are allowed to grow the curriculum themselves rather than having it imposed upon them, that exalts the teaching profession.

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It’s a common sight on Japanese mass transit: Children troop through train cars, singly or in small groups, looking for seats.

The "better to have loved and lost" rationale really doesn't apply to attempts to execute pair work and group work activities correctly. There is a lot of other very meaningful work that you can do with the students. Do pair work only if you think it's likely to succeed.

How Google Classroom is coming along? Check out this video...

This is around the time that first year junior high school students should be learning this grammar. It is not a complex grammar point and should be pretty easy to follow. The lesson is simple but effective in explaining the grammar point. The activity is communicative and also gives the lesson a fun element rather than just the conventional sentence writing practice. The lesson can work well for any sized class and can also be used as warm-up activities if the grammar has already been studied.

Since 2003, PBS has followed children from different countries as part of the documentary series "Time for School." In this fourth installment, hear the story of Ken Higashiguchi from Nara, Japan, where the school hours are long and the expectations are high. Check out this video...

Students do not look to you to be an arbiter concerning precisely how smart they are. First and foremost, they look to you to inspire them to reach beyond themselves in general. But in more mundane terms, they look to you to lay out the rewards and punishments associated with your course in such a way that they themselves as well as their classmates are encouraged towards actions that facilitate a meaningful learning environment.