Of the “big” three academic skills–reading, writing, and math–writing probably lost the most ground last year. Students hardly did any writing last year, especially compared to prior years. And although this isn’t surprising, given the stresses on teaching and learning during the pandemic, it doesn’t bode well for overall academic acheivement. As my summer writing […]
Read MoreYoung men are opting out of college. That’s the headline in a dozen or so recent articles pointing out the decline in male academic performance. When I wrote Motivate Your Son in 2012, I saw this train wreck coming based on the hundreds of boys who entered our Student Mastery Program. Most of the girls […]
Read MoreComing of Age Ceremonies Religions and cultures across the globe have celebrations to honor becoming an adult. For that reason, it would seem that transitioning from child or adolescent to adult must be a big deal. Here in the melting pot of the US, many of those religions and cultures still have those celebrations. However, […]
Read MoreFrom Scott Galloway’s blog: While their parents harass doctors at school board meetings and fight epic Facebook comment wars, our kids are not learning to read or count. McKinsey projects that this learning gap will reduce lifetime earnings for K-12 students by an average of $49,000 to $61,000. By the time the majority of these […]
Read MoreFrom the Wall St. Journal At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men […]
Read MoreI have been educating students for 2 decades in Shoreline, Connecticut. Pre-pandemic, I noticed that students did not seem as strong as in the past. I can describe the reasons in greater depth for anyone interested in boring lecture! But I can sum up quickly with the obvious: social media/texting/video-games/YouTube/every other astonishing distraction…. Let me […]
Read MoreConnecticut is a wonderful spot for the summer. Those who live near the shoreline or in Fairfield County delight in our moderate temperatures and beaches. Post pandemic, the fun has begun. And, we’ve all earned it. Enjoy! Students certainly should indulge in as much wholesome fun as time will allow. However…. as much as our […]
Read MoreEducators see the damage already. The Learning Consultants has 50 plus tutors throughout Connecticut and New York. Many are teachers. The anecdotal evidence is unsurprising: students are falling behind. The reasons are easy to decipher: there has been less school (those hybrid models usually deplete the school day); more time for unhealthy diversions (Tik-tok, […]
Read MoreThere has always been a gap between students whose parents provide summer enrichment and those that do not. (See Malcolm Gladwell’s famous discussion of students in Baltimore). In quick summary, researchers from Johns Hopkins studied factors that led to student achievement. IQs, wealth, educational levels of parents and so forth were measured. The single biggest […]
Read MoreI have advocated that our college counseling students consider a gap year for almost as long as our college counseling services have been in existence. “Consider” does not mean committing. It simply means evaluating as possible alternative. It always made sense to me to take a gap year for students who (1) needed some maturity […]
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