Faculty in the Media

"School recess has long been considered a standard part of children’s education in the United States. But it’s more than just a fun break from sitting at a desk. Daily recess is necessary for supporting young children and adolescents’ learning, as well as their physical and mental health."

"I do think there’s a risk of widening inequalities here, as schools with more resources and technical expertise may be better positioned to navigate these decisions, while others may have fewer options."

"Reading doesn’t happen only in school. It happens outside of school too. The kids who read for fun almost every day and the kids who miss no days of school score the highest in our national reading assessments. Yet today’s world does not invite most of us to engage in sustained reading."

"At the heart of a prevention agenda should be a systematic focus on ensuring that children and young people have sturdy, caring relationships with at least one adult and peer, that they are engaging in activities that provide meaning and purpose, are appreciated for at least one area of competence, and feel like they’re contributing — and mattering — to others."

"My inclination would be to shield [children] from the news, because they have vibrant, exciting imaginations that can get triggered by the news or vulnerabilities or fears about separation: I don’t know that I’d want my fourth grader reading about immigrant kids being separated from their parents at the border."

"We’re far more aware of mental health these days, which is a great thing, but we need to be cautious not to overpathologize the typical experiences in the process. We don’t want to overreact to the student who is having a typical bad day, and we don’t want to underreact to the student who needs clinical care."

"[When] an attempt to communicate with a family only happens after there’s an incident, or when the student is chronically absent, [it's a problem]."

"When they move to third grade, that is when we see children make the transition from learning to read to reading to learn, which is why some experts see this grade as pivotal."

"What’s really important for us to do is to start to tell a much more honest story about college. Every student has their own version of feeling lonely and unsettled, and almost no student shares it with each other. They all think that they are struggling alone [and] that they are uniquely doing something wrong.”

"A kid should learn how to fail and how to cope with it. [They need assistance] to make sense of a trauma in some way, feel like they have some control over it."

"Learning is a process that is relational. Having tools arrive in the classroom without any sort of understanding of what effects they’ll have, it’s dividing teachers and students. And in that division, the relationships are being damaged."

"That’s one of the big advantages of learning to write cursive: In the process of learning to write it, you’re learning to read it. It’s learning to access history and literature and shared culture."

"We need to recognize the importance of creative critical thinking and giving children opportunities to learn skills like listening, like empathy, like how to tell stories through all different sorts of mediums, how to communicate feelings through paint and movement and sound and how to sit with uncertainty and develop resiliency."

"We can’t promise you if you learn this skill, this one profession or occupation, that [it] is going to be around."

"My plea is: Let's move beyond quickly on the fact that children are our future, and say what we are going to do about that. We need new ideas, we need to be bold."

"Responsibility for digital agency can’t rest just on the shoulders of our young people, who are being asked to withstand designs that prey on psychological vulnerabilities and developmental sensitivities."

"Our leaders have been asleep at the wheel, and I hope they wake up before Massachusetts loses its lead in K-12 education."

"There’s a confidence crisis in public education. We need leadership and a sense of urgency in our field."

"Teachers, like most workers, respond to robust performance evaluations and employment incentives—and in the case of Tennessee, these responses boost their effectiveness in the classroom and, therefore, student achievement."

"The gravitational pull of the elites is, unfortunately, drawing attention away from problems within higher education that are more consequential and widespread: an unsustainable economic model, unfavorable demographics, outdated pedagogy and curricula, and, maybe most important, a stubborn resistance to transformational change."

"The only thing we can count on is that things are going to change. AI is ... just giving us a new way to think about the importance and the necessity of adaptability."

“Among Gen Zers, there is a lot of concern about the world, and there’s a wanting to do something meaningful that will make it better.”

"The question isn’t whether to use AI but how and with what benefits and costs."

"Teachers are facing a difficult choice.The questions are how do we create incentives in the teaching profession that lead teachers to teach in a more ambitious way, and how can we maintain high standards in teacher training so that teachers are trained to teach the way we know through 30 years of work that teachers should be teaching?"

"The problem is that our educational systems are geared to teaching reckoning, and their quality is measured by assessing reckoning, the GRE, the SAT, the LSAT, et cetera, et cetera. And, so, what we're doing is preparing human beings to lose to AI as opposed to preparing human beings with skills that complement AI." 

"Young people don’t always know what’s a foundational skill-building activity and what isn’t. So they can’t make decisions about what to offload, if anything."

"Changing when and how the test is administered can make a real difference in access even without any kind of explicit consideration of neighborhood or school in the admissions policy."

"The research shows that when you teach to the high standards, regardless of students' past performance or their income level or background, students rise to the occasion and make the largest gains."

"Meaning and purpose are the deep engines of our lives. ... We can talk about banning cellphones in schools, which I think is a good thing, and providing more therapists, which I also think is a good thing, but my guess is that helping other people and making a positive difference in others’ lives is significantly more likely to strengthen Gen Zers’ mental health than those other strategies."

"Immigration policy has had a chilling effect. There is less likelihood that families will come to the border with their children ... knowing that separation and incarceration are possibilities."