January/February 2006
Teacher Magazine, Vol. 17, Issue 04
Education
Events
Following are dates for workshops, conferences, and other professional de velopment opportunities for teachers. Some events may include administra tors, policymakers, parents, and others. The list is organized by region, though some events are national meetings. Registration deadlines may close be fore the date of the event. Asterisks (*) denote new entries.
Science
Over and Under
By studying petroglyphs and the stars, Graham Dey takes students into the past.
Curriculum
Opinion
Boys to Men
A middle school health video sparks an unexpectedly frank discussion on sexuality. Includes audio download.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
The Big Picture
A former state ed commissioner makes a case for boosting teacher pay and class size.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Worlds Collide
True learning happens only when schooling and the "real world" collide.
Education
For Your Students
Following are application dates for student contests, scholarships, and internships. Asterisks (*) denote new entries.
Education
Then and Now
Visitors to teachermagazine.org discuss the generational divide in the teaching profession.
Teaching Profession
Picket Fencing
Once as familiar in the back-to-school ritual as falling leaves, teacher strikes seem headed for a winter freeze.
Education
Kids Books
Kids entering their teen years often face demands that require newfound inner strength, a recurrent theme in recent books for the 12-and-older crowd.
Science
Separation Anxiety
Growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, Christine Rosen attended the Keswick Christian School, where the Bible was the primary textbook — and the sole authority on the origins of life on Earth. Rosen recounts her struggle, as a young girl, to reconcile her experience at a secular summer science program with Keswick's strict creationist teachings.
Teaching
A Walk in the Woods
Henry David Thoreau's legacy can best be experienced by a stroll around Walden Pond, as another carpenter-turned-author shows a group of students each year.
Curriculum
Chapter & Verse
One of the most influential critics who helps shape what goes into textbooks is a conservative Christian who works out of an east Texas strip mall.
Teaching
Native Intelligence
Two new programs in Washington state make American Indian culture the core of schools' subjects—and success.
Teacher Preparation
Watch Over Me
Teacher-induction programs seem to work best when mentors are given enough time and resources to do their jobs well.
Classroom Technology
To Each His Own
When the state of Maine issued 37,000 laptops to its middle school students, teachers needed time and training to get used to the idea of one-to-one computing.
Mathematics
Q&A
Still Standing
Now semiretired, Jaime Escalante explains what it takes to stand and deliver.
School & District Management
Long Way Home
As West Virginia has consolidated hundreds of community schools over the past few decades, students are spending more of their time riding the bus.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Esprit de Corps
After reading the article in the Current Events section on JROTC [“Under Fire,” October 2005], I would like to know where Arlene Inouye—a language specialist—gets her information. My daughter is a level 2 cadet in the JROTC program at Ronald Reagan High School in San Antonio. Never has she been taught to use physical violence to solve a problem.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Watch Words
Normally I enjoy your magazine very much. It comes directly to our school, and all of the teachers read it as time allows in the faculty lounge.