But as teachers, especially in the digital age, we can provide support for the poorly organized student. I know some of my colleagues in the teacher’s lounge would argue with me on this point, especially because my poorly organized student is 15. When will she learn responsibility if we keep doing everything for her? they’ll ask.

Here’s my answer: We need to model good organization and coping methods for poor organization. We need to make sure that all students, even the disorganized ones, feel school is a place for them. We need to make sure our message is responsibility, sure, but also support.

Dr. Allen Mendler, in his book More What Do I Do When…Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior, suggests some ways that teachers can assist the disorganized student.

Offer duplicate materials. If you have a spare textbook, check it out to the disorganized student so she’ll have a textbook at home and in her locker. When she tries to do her assignement at night, she won’t be discouraged because her textbook is in her locker – again.

Post the week’s assignments online and link to handouts. This is a good suggestion, and not just for the disorganized student. Posting notices, assignments, timelines, and handouts online helps students who miss class for a dentist appointment or a track meet. It also helps parents get a handle on exactly what the night’s assignment entails and they can stop by the craft store to pick up glue and felt, instead of racing the clerks to the door at closing time.

Offer praise. When a poorly disorganized student hands in a paper that’s neat and on time, our first reaction might be to think Well, it’s about time she start acting like everyone else. Instead, Mendler recommends that teachers congratulate the student and try to get her to describe what she did to be successful. “The more students attribute success to their own talents and resources,” Mendler writes, “the more likely they are to realize that they already have what it takes to succeed.” Belief is so powerful. It might take a minute of your time to offer this bit of praise, but a student might carry that minute with her for a lifetime.

Reduce an assignment’s length. If you have disorganized student, try putting fewer problems on a page for her, Mendler writes. When she finishes with that page of problems, ask her to turn it in, praise her, and give her another small set. My colleagues in the teachers’ lounge might call this spoon-feeding. Others might call it chunking. As students enter middle or high school, teachers can model how to chunk up homework assignments as a regular part of the class. It’s good teaching for all students, not just the disorganized ones.

Provide class time for organization. Before students leave for their next class, give them a few minutes to make sure they have all their notes in the proper place and have the assignment written down in their planners. Taking a couple of minutes out to make sure everyone is organized shows students that you think organization is important and a skill. Modeling the questions they need to ask  themselves at the end of class helps, too. Ask: Do you know what materials you’ll need to be successful in this assignment? Have you put your notes away in your binder and not inside your book cover? Did you write down the page numbers you’ll need for this assignment? Have you asked all the questions you need answered so you can complete your work?

Of course this isn’t a complete list of supports that you can easily offer the disorganized student. And really, these supports aren’t limited to those who can’t find their notebooks or pencils. Like so many supports for struggling students, it’s just good teaching. ALL students, even your organized, A+ students, can benefit from these suggestions.

My disorganized student is a good kid. She’s a smart kid. But she really loves it when a teacher recognizes that she needs a helping hand and she’s grateful. So am I.

Reference:
Mendler, Allen N. More What Do I Do When…? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press. 2005. Pages 70 – 71.

What do you do to support the poorly organized student? Do you think that they should be supported or do you think that supporting these students leads to irresponsibility and bad study habits? It’s O.K. to disagree with me – the best conversations come from a healthy debate! Please share your supports or your criticisms in the comments.

Do you have a question for the editor? Would you like to suggest a topic for a post? Are you interested in writing a guest post? Email editor Diane Trim.

Photo credits:
Mess: danabooo
randi locker: miguelb
Beat-up history book: crazytales562 / Chris Chan

Now as a parent, I race my daughter to the bathroom in the morning and I feel around her pillow at night for the contraband cell phone.

Cell phones. The fact is, kids are wired. I’m not talking junk food and Red Bull. In their dramatic teen way, 85 percent of our secondary students have a cell phone and they insist they’d just die without it. It’s their social outlet and nearly half of the kids in our school hallways say they their cell phone is the key to their social life.

And teens love to text and spend about 90 minutes a day doing it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study. They love it because it’s fast (42%), it’s stealthy (33%), and it’s fun (29%). (Harris Interactive, 2008) The problem is that over half of your students are doing it at school (65%). What’s worse is that a third of your class has used a cell phone at least once to cheat on a test (35%), yet they really don’t think it’s cheating (23%). (Common Sense Media, 2009)

Despite the trouble with cell phones, few recommend that students not have them. Teens report that they carry their phones everywhere with them not just to communicate, but for safety reasons (78%). They call someone for a ride (79%), call to help a friend who is in trouble (33%), and call for an emergency (18%). Cell phones are both a blessing and a curse. (Harris Interactive, 2008)

Social Networking. Social networking and cell phones are a closely tied. One-third of the nation’s secondary students have a smartphone that can browse the Web. When they’re on the ‘net, almost half of them are on a social networking site. (Harris Interactive, 2008)

When they’re on the computer, it’s likely they’re on a social media site, too. Ninety-two percent of kids socialize online and over half have made new friends online. Of those who have an online social life, just 1 in 4 are friending their parents. (Norton Online Living Report, 2009)

Despite friending their kids, parents have a tough time monitoring their children’s’ Internet use. Seven in 10 parents have Internet rules and their kids say they follow these rules 80 percent of the time. Most parents think it’s their responsibility to monitor their kids’ Internet use (90%) and 70 percent of them talk about online safety with their kids. But parents struggle with this (33%) because the Internet and other digital technologies weren’t around when they were kids.

We’ve all read the stories of cyberbullying and it is certainly a problem. About 30 percent of teens have reported being the victim of some kind of cyberbullying and about half have seen it online. Most of the cyberbullies knew their targets personally (84%), but just one in three victims knew who was bullying them. Over the course of a year, almost one in five secondary students were directly involved in cyberbullying. Of those kids, twelve percent were bullies, four percent were victims, and three percent were both. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2009)

Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, who run the Cyberbullying Research Center (http://www.cyberbullying.us), recently did a study and found that 1 out of 5 students reported contemplating suicide and about that many had actually attempted it. They write that their findings mesh with other suicide studies. When looking at bullying, they found both victims and aggressors were more likely to attempt suicide than their non-bullying peers. Victims of traditional bullying were 1.7 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and victims of cyberbullying were 1.9 times more likely to attempt it. Traditional bullies are 2.1 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and cyberbullies were 1.5 times more likely to attempt it. Although these numbers seem low and almost identical, the study authors write that any suicide attempt is one too many. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2010)

One principal’s response

In Ridgewood, N.J., middle school principal Anthony Orsini sent an e-mail to all of the students’ parents to encourage them to stop allowing their kids to be involved in social media. “It is time for every single member of the BF Community to take a stand!” Orsini wrote in the e-mail. “There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site.” (Brody and Coutros, 2010)

Orsini recommended that parents take action to make sure their children weren’t on social networking sites. Told parents to close out their kids’ social networking accounts, install Parental Control Software, and keep the computer in a place where parents can monitor online behavior. He said parents should monitor their teens’ text messages online and make sure that all wireless devices are left at a central docking station at bed time.

Orsini wrote that middle school students are not ready to cope with cyberbullying and its negative effects. It’s not enough, Orsini wrote, to teach a student to be responsible online. Social media is uncontrollable and unsafe.

“[…]it is not worth the risk to your child to allow them the independence at this age to manage these sites on their own, not because they are not good kids or responsible, but because you cannot control the poor actions of anonymous others,” Orsini wrote.

My opinion

Our students are digital natives, a term that means they depend on electronic devices for almost all parts of their lives. They’ve never known a world where the Internet didn’t exist. Their cell phones are always at an arm’s reach and they spend a good portion of their day online. To take away their technology is to isolate them from their friends.

And let’s face it: they can just go to a friend’s house to login. In fact, over 1 in 5 students do just that. (Norton Online Living Report, 2009)

Parents and students expect our schools to prepare kids for the 21st century. Like it or not, online social networking isn’t going away. We can either embrace it or have it run amok, unsupervised and unchecked behind our backs.

Instead of powering down, we need to empower our students. We need to have the conversation about what they should do if they witness or are the victim of online aggression. Encourage students to print out the Web page as evidence and tell an adult. Keep inviting them to tell an adult and assure them that they won’t be lose their digital access if they do. Hinduja and Patchin found that 60 percent of cyberbullying victims do not tell an adult because they’re worried they’ll lose their online access.

The just turn it off philosophy doesn’t equip students to deal with the very real consequences of their digital world. Instead of turning off the technology, we should create a contract with students and outline our expectations on the front end. We need to be having the conversation every time we take our classes into the computer lab: don’t reveal private information online; you can be legally held accountable for nasty images and text you post online; if you ever have trouble online, tell an adult you trust.

Schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the world beyond our double doors. If you’d like to teach an entire cyberbullying unit, you need some scenarios for a discussion, or you want some examples of parent letters, I recommend checking out the free, extensive curriculum that Seattle Public Schools has developed. You can view it here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html.

Not only do we need to educate our students about social networking and online safety, but we need to educate parents as well. Instead of just having them review and sign the Acceptable Use policy, dedicate part of the school’s open house night or parent-teacher conferences to online safety. We need them to partner with us to make their kids safe at school and at home.

Taking away the kids’ devices isn’t going to remove the problem; the problem will just go underground. I would rather have open, honest discussions about technology use than to have students find ways to circumvent adults. I would rather figure out ways to employ responsible social networking in the classroom as an engagement tool as well as a model for how the technology can be used. It’s difficult and time consuming to teach the kids about responsible social networking. However, I don’t think pulling the plug teaches anything at all.

What do you think? Is social networking interfering with your ability to teach? Are the kids so focused on texting that they can’t focus on their textbooks? Should we tell the kids to close their Facebook accounts or should we use it in the classroom?

References:
Brody, L. and Coutros, E. “Ridgewood principal to parents: Get your kids off Facebook.” NorthJersey.com, April 29, 2010 http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/042910_Ridgewood_principal_to_parents_Get_your_kids_off_Facebook.html, accessed 5-13-10.

Generation M²: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. (2010) A Kaiser Family Foundation Study, January 2010. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

A Generation Unplugged (Research Report). Harris Interactive, September 12, 2008 http://files.ctia.org/pdf/HI_TeenMobileStudy_ResearchReport.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J. (2009) Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J. (2009) “Cyberbullying Research Summary: Cyberbullying and Suicide.” Cyberbullying Research Center. http://cyberbullying.us/cyberbullying_and_suicide_research_fact_sheet.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Hi-Tech Cheating: Cell Phones and Cheating in School. A National Poll. (2009) Beneson Strategy Group and Common Sense Media, June 18, 2009. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/Hi-Tech%20Cheating%20-%20Summary%20NO%20EMBARGO%20TAGS.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

Norton Online Living Report. (2009) Symantec Corporation. http://www.nortononlineliving.com/documents/NOLR_Report_09.pdf, accessed 5-14-10.

May is also project month. We have just weeks left of school; no one wants to lecture students who squirm in their seats and watch the clock. Better to keep them engaged with the content and let them direct their own learning with a project.

Many students rely on Google’s Image search to find photos for their PowerPoints, PhotoStories, or iMovies. However, better visuals exist for school projects and what’s more – most of these are copyright friendly.

Flickr.com’s Creative Commons. This site requires a Yahoo! login, but if you’re comfortable allowing your students to register with the site, it’s a great opportunity to find photos to illustrate presentations. The Flickr’s Creative Commons uses CreativeCommons.org’s guidelines for copyright. There are six categories of copyright and they’re all explained on the right-hand side of Flickr’s site. If your students give credit to the photographer, let the photographer know that they’re using the image in a school presentation, don’t alter the image, and don’t sell the photo on T-shirts, they should be within the copyright guidelines. However, it’s a great idea to discuss the copyright guidelines with them before they use the photos. You and I both know that our students will visit the site outside of class and we want them to respect the photographer’s rights. For the most part, the images are classroom appropriate. Occasionally I’ll find something objectionable, but then I flag the photo. When your students search, make sure they click on See More to the bottom right of each copyright collection. Do not use the search at the top of the page – those photos may or may not be a part of the Creative Commons. One of the best things about using Flickr.com’s Creative Commons is that students can download the photos in the size that will work best in their project. The photos also respond well to resizing and won’t become too blurry if a student increases the photo’s size.

MorgueFile.com The term Morgue File comes from the print world where editors put the paper to bed and then review the past issue in a postmortem meeting. After the review, someone files the old issue in the morgue file. Online, this is a spot where searchers can use any photo they find in any way they choose – without regard to altering, selling, or providing attribution for the image. MorgueFile.com doesn’t have the huge number of photos that Flickr.com’s Creative Commons does, but it’s a place where you know your students won’t be stomping on anyone’s copyrights. Despite the free nature of the site, having the copyright discussion and providing attribution and feedback for the photographer is just good manners. No one has officially culled these photos for inappropriate content, so occasionally I’ll find something objectionable. MorgueFile.com has a reporting link for objectionable images at the bottom right of each photo. Be sure your students are using the free photo search at the top of each web page, not the sponsored, paid photo search they’ll find at the bottom of the page. These photos respond well to resizing, so you don’t need to worry about blurry images in projects.

LoveVectorFree.com Students will find illustrations for use in projects on this site. Vector means that the images can be resized without blurry effects. Free means that your students can use the images without opening your wallet. LoveVectorFree.com’s legal page allows people to use any image on the site for any purpose, without attribution. However, a good discussion about attribution is never wrong. Encourage students to leave a comment for the artist, give them feedback about their work, and let them know they’re using the images in a school project. It’s good manners. LoveVectorFree.com is a new site, so the collection doesn’t have tons of illustrations, but new images come in all the time. Unlike the other sites in this post, LoveVectorFree.com doesn’t have a feature for guests to report inappropriate content. At the moment, the images on the site lean towards fluffy bunnies and brightly colored flowers, so I think sending students to the site would be safe.

The Big Picture. This site is part of The Boston Globe’s Boston.com site. A web editor chooses a timely topic like the anniversary of the Vietnam war, the oil spill in the Gulf, or Earth Day and gathers up the best photos from around the world about the topic. Of course, Boston.com has the right to post these photos, but your students shouldn’t use these in presentations. Rather, this site is for you and your lesson planning. The dramatic photos are a terrific way to bring up current topics in many disciplines or illustrate the impact of the world’s big events. I strongly recommend that you preview the photos first before class. It’s good practice anyway, but a few photos on the site are graphic. For example, some photos in the Vietnam war collection have been blacked out for graphic content. To access the photo, a user has to click on the screen to view the image. That’s great – it makes lesson planning easier for me. However, some of the photos in the Vietnam series haven’t been blacked out and they made me squirm. I wouldn’t want to show some of those images in my classroom, not just because they’re graphic, but I wouldn’t want to cement my reputation as a total wimp.

Do you have any online image resources where you send your students? Please share these in the comments and let us all know about the copyright restrictions and content. Even better: how do you make sure that students don’t spend their entire computer lab time hunting down images instead of creating content?

As teachers we know that the schoolhouse gate doesn’t serve as a barrier to information from the real world. The sexual text messages and instant messages (sexting) our teens send to one another during their online evenings can create a lot of trouble during the offline school day.

But these cyberbullying events take place off school grounds. Really, should teachers get involved in this sexting mess? What can we do about sexting, anyway?

The case for intervention. In their book, Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying, Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin make the case that teachers are in the best position to help students with cyberbullying issues. Many students spend more time with their teachers than they do with their parents, the authors write. Teachers see students interact with one another every day and might pick up on unusual behavior or a subtle cue that something is wrong with a student.

Hinduja and Patchin write that adults who are aware of teen sexual harassment, but fail to respond, can be held liable for not assisting the teen, even if the event takes place off campus.

Students who circulate sexting messages or other forms of cyberbullying can’t limit their messages’ reach or timing. Teens who check their cell phones during a school break or lunch can find a surprise sexting video waiting for them in their InBox. If the video is of someone the teens know, the whole school day can be disrupted.

The important legal principal to guide teachers and other school officials, the authors write, is this: School officials cannot discipline students for off-campus speech or behavior with which they simply do not agree unless the school environment is significantly affected.

Media as sexual exploration. Teens are curious about their bodies. They’re curious about one another’s bodies, too. This generation of kids didn’t invent sexual exploration, but they have many more ways to explore and share.

That’s both a problem and a benefit of digital media, the authors of “Sex, Sexuality, Sexting, and SexEd: Adolescents and the Media” wrote. Among gay and lesbian youth, online media give the teens a safe outlet to explore their sexuality in a way that they can’t offline.

“On the Internet, GLBT youth discuss a variety of sexual identities and queer politics, as well as seek partners, navigate the coming out process, and frankly discuss sexual practices, including safer sex,” the authors wrote.

However, teens who post or send sexting messages can also give the wrong idea about sharing sexual content. The authors wrote that teens who see risky sexual behavior online with no consequences are more likely to experiment with the risky acts. Girls who send sexting photos practice self-objectification.

The biggest worry, the authors wrote, is that teens whose sexual images appear online or in text messages have an increased risk of victimization.

Health information and the Internet. Research shows that 44 percent of teens turn to the Internet for health information, and one-quarter or more of them research sexually transmitted diseases, sex, and pregnancy. One study found that 41 percent of teens who researched a health issue online changed their behavior because of the information they’d found. The Internet can be a great place to discover answers to life’s embarrassing or awkward questions.

The problem is that they’re not sophisticated Internet searchers. They judge a site not by the site’s authors, but how slick the design is. If the site looks professional, most teens think, then it’s credible.

Some teens also don’t have the vocabulary to search the Internet for credible sexual information. Instead of using anatomical names, they search with slang terms. Of course, these teens find sexually explicit sites, the “Sex, Sexuality, Sexting, and SexEd” authors wrote. Teens who are exposed to sexually explicit images are more likely to become sexually active at an earlier age than their peers.

What teachers can do. Kids are always going to be interested in their bodies. Cell phones and the Internet aren’t going away any time soon. Inappropriate photos have been around since the invention of the camera. So how can we prevent the spread of sexting messages?

• Educate students about how to assess the credibility of Web sites
• Offer teens appropriate Web sites and vocabulary in health classes
• Encourage students to visit their privacy settings on social network sites to make sure that their privacy is protected
• Review the district rules about cyberbullying with students and make sure they understand the consequences of their actions
• Invite students to come to you privately with questions or concerns about sexting or cyberbullying
• Give students guidelines about posting images online and over cellphones
• Hold parent meetings to discuss cyberbullying and sexting

MTV has a program called A Thin Line, which is trying to stop digital abuse, Amanda Paulson wrote in The Christian Science Monitor. Parry Aftab is the executive director of WiredSafety and an adviser to A Thin Line. Aftab says that teens rarely think about the consequences of their actions. They look at sexting as a safe alternative to sex.

Paulson quoted Aftab: I tell kids the five P’s. If you don’t want your parents, your principal, a predator, the police, or your potential coach, college recruiter, or boss to see it, don’t post it publicly.

References:

Brown, J., Keller, S., and Stern, S. (2009.) Sex, Sexuality, Sexting, and SexEd: Adolescents and the Media. The Prevention Researcher. 16:4, 12-16.

Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J. (2009.) Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Lenhart, A. (2009) Teens and Sexting: How and why minor teens are sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images via text messaging. Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/PIP_Teens_and_Sexting.pdf Accessed 2/1/10

Paulson, A. (2009.) Sexting: at least 15 percent of teens take part. Christian Science Monitor. 12/16/2009, p1.

The Obameter lists the latest updates to the campaign on its front page and has a 57-item category list of promises that range from agriculture and ethics to terrorism and trade.

To celebrate President’s Day and the new administration, it would be fun to use the 510 campaign promises list as a class project in either social studies or math – or both.

Here’s my game:

• Over the course of a week, ask students to visit http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/.
• Students should select five campaign promises with a No Action status. Each of the five should be from a different category; however, students can employ strategies to improve their chances of winning.
  Students record their campaign promise, its number, and its category on a scorecard.
• Each week, visit Politifact.com to track the success of the campaign promises. The first student to have all five campaign promises realized wins a fabulous prize of your choosing.
• Alternate ending: if no one has all five campaign promises with the status of Kept, tally up the points on May 20 (Obama’s fourth month in office) and award prizes to the students with the most points.

Other activities:

• As a whole class activity, track which of the 57 categories garner the most attention from the Obama White House.
• Discuss which campaign promises are stalled or broken and why.
• Track Obama’s (and other politician’s) truthfulness on Politi-fact’s Truth-o-Meter, too.

We’re all tightening our belts, but some of us do it better than others. Financial literacy is important for students to understand, not just during economic recessions, but for positive life-long spending habits.

A recent British study found that children imitate their parents’ spending habits, mostly those of their mothers. So if you’re spendy rather than thrifty, there’s a good chance your kids will be, too. However, researchers also found that 45 percent of adults have developed their own spending habits, independent from their parents.

That’s good news for we the spendy and we the educators. We can change our spending habits and teach good ones to our students.

Ithryv.com (pronounced I thrive) is a new site that helps educators teach about financial literacy in an age-appropriate, hands-on way. Teacher sign up for the free Web-based software through its sister site, WeProsper.org.

WeProsper.org is a movement to promote financial literacy. Teachers who sign up can have access to ithryv – professor. The ithryv – professor version allows teachers to upload class lists and student ages as well as set up scenarios for the class to practice on. Teachers can review class data and provide students feedback.

When students visit the site, they can choose the look and flavor of their banking screen and view the data the teacher has loaded for them. Students also see their savings score, which is analogous to the real world’s credit score, and content.

Students use ithryv as a simulation of financial decisions in the real world. They make choices about how to spend or invest their money and their decisions affect their savings score as well as their account balance.

“It’s a content ecosystem,” said Matt Messinger, ithryv’s vice president. “The intelligent system registers the user’s demographic and spending habits and offers content targeted to that student.”

Ithryv has formed a partnership with Junior Achievement and now offers teachers and students entrepreneurial opportunities. Teachers can select the entrepreneur module on ithryv – professor, which will give students over 10 different choices to make money in the real world. Downloadable guides help students start a shoe shine business, a pet care service, or a mommy’s helper agency. Students can track their expenses and earnings in ithryv and receive advice about how to spend or invest their money.

Ithryv is in the Beta stage this quarter, but a full version of the site, with expanded offerings for high school students will arrive in the fall of 2009. Eventually, the site’s owners will partner with banks so that young banking customers will find the ithryv platform and financial advice when they monitor their accounts over the Internet.

Parents can also have access to the ithryv software and create financial simulations for their children at home, too.

Bottom line: This attractive site is still in the testing stage, but from the looks of the site, the full version will be robust. Eventually, the site will include state standards and ready-to-use lesson plans for teachers to easily incorporate financial literacy in their classrooms.

Recommended disciplines: ithryv would be best for business education teachers, consumer math teachers, life skills special education teachers, and business writing classes.

Pilot teachers wanted. Messinger invites teachers to check out the site and leave feedback to make the free financial literacy tool useful for classroom teachers.

“It seems obvious that parents and teachers should work together,” said Suzanne Tingley, author of Dealing with Difficult Parents. “After all, both parents and teachers have the child’s best interest at heart. Both want the child to be successful and both understand that the child has a greater chance of being successful when the home and the school work together. Unfortunately, despite their shared goals, parents and teachers sometimes run into conflict about how to reach those goals.”

The Survey of the American Teacher found that 97 percent of teachers strongly or somewhat agree that effective teachers need to be able to work well with students’ parents. However, just 37 percent of secondary school teachers surveyed said that parents come to parent-teacher conferences.

“Teachers appreciate parents who attend conferences, plays, games and other events in which their child is involved,” Tingley said. “At the secondary level at parent conferences often the parents who show up are the parents of kids who are doing really well. Often times, parents who need to be there decide that as kids move through the high school they really don’t need to do that anymore, and that’s simply not true.”

The MetLife survey bears this out. When researchers surveyed students, 48 percent of middle school students (grades 7-9) said their parents were very involved in their education. In grades 10-12, that number drops to 22 percent.

Tingley recommends that teachers encourage positive parent involvement from the beginning of the school year. She suggests teachers send a letter home, with the parent’s name in the salutation to make it more personal. Weekly letters to parents are also helpful to start a parent-teacher dialogue.

“Send a Friday letter,” Tingley said. “Elementary teachers do this a lot, but I know secondaries that have done this also – and it doesn’t have to be Friday. ‘This is what we did this week. This is what we’re doing this week. This is what’s going to be coming up and here’s how you can help, and by the way, if you have any questions or concerns, please call the school office and I will get back to you just as soon as I possibly can.’”

Inviting parents to call or contact the teacher might seem like a broken record, Tingley said, but parents need to know what to do and the proper procedures for contacting the teacher.

Tingley also recommends that teachers keep a Website. “This is a growing area, and actually many teachers find this to be a lot easier than letters,” she said. “An advantage to this is parents can share the responsibility of communicating by checking the website for news, and allowing parents to email you is quick and it’s timely, and you can respond when you have the time, and actually that’s often a lot quicker than calling.”

Despite the fact that 81 percent of teachers believe that principals try to involve parents in education, the fact is that too few parents are taking that role. As teachers, it’s part of our job to work with and involve parents in their students’ education, Tingley said.

“When parents and teachers work together, it’s a united front,” she said. “The school and the home are the two authority figures in the student’s life, and students really want those two sides to work together. Instruction improves when the home and school work together, or at the very least, it doesn’t decline.”

National Geographic has captured Pearl Harbor’s events in a multi-media timeline and map that would work well as a history mini-unit, stretching over one or two class periods. http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/ax/map.html The site’s interactive timeline pulls up maps of the Hawaiian Islands with ship and aircraft movements. Clicking on Full Story reveals a paragraph about each event on the timeline, photos from the moment, and sometimes first-person testimonials about the event.

To view this site, it’s best to have sound and the ability to watch video on your computer. Before using this unit, make sure that you have a projector to show the site to your class and that the sound carries to all students. Allow one 90-minute block or two 45-minute classes for this lesson, plus additional time on a third day if students need to present work to the class

Objectives:

1. Students will view the events at Pearl Harbor from the perspective of U.S. citizens and Japanese military personnel.
2. Students will explain the role technology and communication played in both the U.S. and Japanese militaries.
3. Students will compare the events of Pearl Harbor to a pivotal event in their own lifetime.

Materials:

• Computer
• LCD projector
• Sound for the computer (optional)

Method:

Day one/first 45 minutes

1. Define a pivotal event. Write on the board the words “pivotal event.” Underneath these words, pose this question: what is a pivotal event and what are historical examples and personal examples? As students enter the room, encourage them to think about what’s on the board.
2. List pivotal events. Sort students in to small groups and give them five minutes to discuss and create a list of pivotal events, either historical or personal (personal pivotal events might be a divorce or a death). Record the definitions and events on the board for all to reference.
3. Discuss Pearl Harbor in brief. It was a surprise attack, it occurred December 7, 1941, and 2,403 people died. (For comparison, the number of deaths from the 9/11 attacks was 2,819.)
4. Assign readers. You’ll need 28 students to, read the blurbs when you click on Full Story. You’ll need 12 additional students to read first-hand accounts that have no accompanying recordings. Each student can expect to read a paragraph, maybe two. You can assign these reading roles by time, location, and duty.

   Narrators:
   0342 Minesweeper spots submarine periscope
   0610 Six carriers are north of Oahu
   0645 Destroyer spots submarine
   0653 U.S. Destroyer Ward reports attack on submarine
   0702 Radar operators spot unidentified aircraft
   0715 Report about U.S. attack on submarine delayed
   0720 Officer dismisses radar report
   0733 Warning from Washington arrives in Honolulu
   0740 Attack force heads for Pearl Harbor
   0749 Japanese aerial commander orders attack
   0755 Japanese planes strike
   0800 Bombers from the U.S. mainland fly to Oahu
   0810 Battleship Arizona explodes
   0817 U.S. destroyer fires at a Japanese submarine
   0839 Destroyer sinks Japanese sub in the harbor
   0850 U.S.S. Nevada makes a dash to the sea
   0854 Second wave of Japanese planes reach Oahu
   0930 U.S. destroyer Shaw explodes
   1000 Japanese planes head back to carriers
   1300 Casualties mount, filling hospitals
   1300 Japanese ships return home

   First-hand accounts, according to the timeline:
   0610 Six carriers are north of Oahu, Japanese pilot
   0645 Destroyer spots submarine, U.S. soldier
   0740 Attack force heads for Pearl Harbor, Japanese pilot, another Japanese pilot
   0749 Japanese aerial commander orders attack Japanese attack commander, Japanese pilot
   0755 Japanese planes strike
   U.S.S. Arizona, U.S. sailor
   Command Center, female citizen
   U.S.S. Oklahoma, U.S. sailor, another U.S. sailor
   0817 U.S. destroyer fires at Japanese submarine, Japanese sub commander
   1300 Casualties mount, filling hospitals, nurse

   Each reader is responsible for taking notes about his or her time spot on the timeline. Students should pay close attention to what qualities Pearl Harbor has that makes it a pivotal event, the role that technology and communication played, and parallels to pivotal events listed on the board.

5. Begin the timeline. Listen and watch as events unfold. Students should be prepared to read their assigned paragraph and take notes for their sections.
6. Homework/reflection question: what role did communication play in this tragedy? One paragraph answers to share in class.

Day two/second 45 minutes

1. Role of communication. Students meet in small groups to discuss how communication played a part in Pearl Harbor. After five minutes, record the groups’ findings on the board.
2. Revisit the definition of pivotal moment. Discuss: how is this a pivotal moment?
3. Small group discussion: parallels between Pearl Harbor and current pivotal moments. List similarities on the board.
4. Small group discussion: was Pearl Harbor a matter of superior technology or communication? What role has technology and communication played in the class’s current pivotal event?
5. Project possibilities. Students can choose from one of the following projects:

   a. Real world. Collect artifacts (photos, news clippings, and statistics) that reveal the personal element in both Pearl Harbor and the class’s current pivotal event. Projects should be in poster format. Posters should explain why people remember pivotal moments in history and how these moments shape our culture.
   b. Radar Technology. Outline the use of radar in both the Japanese and American militaries in WWII. Create a visual or write a two-page essay about whether radar technology was important in the battle of Pearl Harbor.
   c. Communications Technology. Find out how telegraphs work and explain the lag time between sending messages and receiving messages. Identify the areas where communication went awry in the Pearl Harbor event and compare it to the class’s current pivotal event. This can be either a written paper or a visual product.
   d. Parallel events. Re-enact the events from an area of the Pearl Harbor timeline. Write a script, cast characters, and make the scene come alive. Either write the same scene from the opposite side’s point of view or write the same type of script for the class’s current pivotal event. In a brief introduction, explain to the audience what the two scenes will be. For your conclusion, explain the parallels between the two scenes.

You might not remember, but that was the election when the democrats won back a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.

The Newseum, located in Washington D.C. and on the Internet at www.newseum.org, collects and displays the front pages from newspapers around the world. For historical events, like the day after an election, the Newseum stores the front pages in an archive.

During this election, you might want to visit the Newseum’s site and click on Today’s Front Pages. You and your students will see the day’s headlines and photos from around the country and around the globe.

In Today’s Front Pages Archives, you’ll find the important dates from this year’s presidential election as well as events in recent history like Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, and September 11, 2001.

As a class, look at the headlines for the major events. What’s the class’s favorite headline and why? Which newspaper snagged the best photo and why is it the best? Which newspaper would you buy? Which one is best for history? Is there a newspaper that just doesn’t seem to be on the same page as all the others? Why is the news in that town so different that day?

The Newseum offers a great deal of content online – it’s like a virtual field trip. However, if you’re in the Washington, D.C. area, including some counties in Virginia and Maryland, a trip to the Newseum might be free. Check the website to be sure.

Oh, and if you go? Buy me one of those cute Newshound beanie toys.

Maybe voters are afraid of the small booths, the machines, or the hanging chad. Perhaps young voters just don’t know what to expect.

Whatever their fear, a 2003 study from Representative Democracy in America: Voices of the People found that only 66 percent of 15- 26-year-olds thought voting was part of being a good citizen.

Knowing how to vote, what to expect as voters, and becoming informed voters will help teens overcome their psephophobia and go to the polls when they’re adults. Mock student elections can give teens the experience and confidence they need to cast their ballots when they’re old enough for the next election.

Inside the School has reviewed student online voting sites based on the following criteria: supplemental materials, lesson plans, online voting, and ease of use. Here are our top picks:

Youth Leadership Initiative. ****

Voting date: October 20 – October 30

Will students vote if World Wrestling Entertainment’s wrestler Rey Mysterio tells them to? University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and its Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) are thinking that the wrestlers have influence on youth that stretches beyond the ring and costumes.

The YLI, a service of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, has an easy-to-use student voting site and will overwhelm you with the amount and quality of its teaching materials.

Supplemental materials. YLI sends participating teachers a big packet in the mail that includes a countdown to the election poster. Each day before the election, you can open up a little door to reveal a trivia question and answer. (That’s where I picked up that neat psephophobia word.) I also received a voter issues booklet with questions that candidates should answer. The WWE Smackdown Your Vote! sponsors the voter issues booklet as well as a big issues poster with diva and superstar wrestlers. All of the YLI materials are attractive, informative and eye-catching.

Lesson plans. The lesson plans are extensive and available online. Many are available in both English and Spanish and some can be accessed in audio forma. Lessons are tagged according to level (high, middle, or elementary school). Large topics include the Foundations of American Government, the Constitution, Congress and the Legislative Process, and the Political Process. Each topic has six – 20 individual lesson plans with materials to download.

Online voting. Teachers who register with the site will receive a code to identify their class or school and they can set their voting preferences (online or paper ballots). YLI offers printable teacher instructions and step-by-step printable student instructions as well as online demonstrations of the voting process. Ballots are generated according to congressional district and will reflect the choices of on the ballots in your school’s voting district. National results will be posted online on Friday, October 31.

Ease of use. The demonstration and printable materials make the YLI site very easy to use. You can download a press release to give to your local media as well as printable decorations for voting day. My only criticism is that YLI gives teachers a lot of information and options. Some teachers might feel overwhelmed with the extensive nature of the site.

National Student/Parent Mock Election. ***

Voting Date: October 30

The National Student/Parent Mock Election recommends having a community tea with Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln. You can invite other White House historical figures to come and bring the media along with them. (Tell John Wilkes Booth to stay at home.)

A White House Tea with guests in historical costume and character is one of the ideas that the National Student/Parent Mock Election recommends to generate interest in its nationwide student mock election. Election organizers can also hold a political rally, a town hall debate, or stage an imitation political convention.

Supplemental materials. The National Student/Parent Mock Election hosts an interactive online campaign game that quizzes players about our basic freedoms. The set-up is good: Congressional candidate Roberta Glass wants to censor kids and pre-approve all music, games, and books for children. The town’s kids are upset, but the child rights theme isn’t worked into any of the campaign quiz stops. The kids’ rights frame appeals to elementary and middle school level students, but the quizzes at the campaign stops are geared toward high school kids. The questions are tough and include matching quotes from former Presidents and Supreme Court Justices with freedom concepts. The graphics are great and the campaign stops are clever, but the mismatch between the young kid frame and the older kid questions might disturb some students. The game provides links to resources for students to study before taking the quizzes. Instead of offering position papers, the resources are links to sites like Wikipedia. A search in an Internet search engine would probably yield the same study materials.

Lesson Plans. Teachers can print out issues guides that are written for the current year’s election. The guides are well done with an overview of the topic (economy, energy, health care, war, and education), where the presidential candidates stand on each issue, and a variety of activities students can perform to learn more about each issue. The activities are heavy on essays, but also include conducting a survey, role-playing, and Socratic Seminars.

Online voting. Once you register with the site, the National Student/Parent Mock Election offers three options for voting: individual online votes, kiosk (shared computer) votes, or paper ballots. Individual students or kiosks will receive a registration number to ensure that students cast only one vote. For paper ballots, teachers need to collect, tabulate, and record vote totals on the computer.

The National Student/Parent Mock Election does not offer an online demonstration of its voting procedures, but it does have practice voting from October 1 – October 17.

Ease of use. The National Student/Parent Mock Election claims that it is the largest voter education program, serving over one million students in 2006. The materials are good, and the site offers both a teacher and student voting guide.

Channel One News’s OneVote. *

Voting date: October 20 – 24

Give Channel One News your e-mail address and they’ll get back to you about their voting program. Teachers and students who visit the site, at least at this posting date, are going to be disappointed in the depth of the materials at the OneVote site. The site has great visuals and links to Channel One and NBC online news footage, but little else.

Supplemental materials. According to a press release, teachers who visit ChannelOneNetwork.com can download tools like banners, posters, and lesson plans. However, at the end of September, none of this was available on the site.

Under the heading Fun and Games, students can take quizzes to test their knowledge of the political process. Each quiz comes with a teen-centered advertisement. The quizzes are tough; the only one that might be fun is the quiz that helps teens figure out which political party fits them best.

Lesson plans. Nonexistent at the end of September.

Online voting. Online voting takes place October 20 – 24 and results will be posted online on October 29. OneVote has not provided any teacher or student guides for the voting process.

Ease of use. Entering in an e-mail address for a future update is pretty simple; however, teachers won’t know the voting procedure until sometime in October. Teachers who like to plan ahead will want to avoid OneVote.

The best thing about all of these online student voting options is that they’re all free and you can pick and choose among the three for the best combination of materials to suit your class.

There are just as many voters aged 18-30 as there are 65 and older. Making use of these election year student voting opportunities will help give your students a voice in the 2012 election and beyond.