13 April 2009 ~ 1 Comment

An Ocean Away

You want your children to learn as much as they can. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. So you send them away on school overnight trips. With this in mind, my son prepared for two wonderful travel opportunities in the span of two weeks. Of course, the day before he leaves, [...]

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29 March 2009 ~ 0 Comments

Essential Questions

My friend Chris, who is writing curriculum for his music students, is crafting Essential Questions for his lessons. Essential Questions are those which, if you have developed and taught your lesson well, all will be able to answer at the end. He believes educators must also ask themselves Essential Questions as they do their jobs. [...]

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13 November 2008 ~ 0 Comments

Band Parents

My wife and I are Band Parents. Not only am I a Band Parent, but as a music teacher, I’ve met a lot of band parents. They are… different. They are not cheerleader parents killing another flute player’s mom for a solo. They are not Little League parents who yell at the director after some [...]

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23 October 2008 ~ 0 Comments

Kids and Honesty

Why do kids lie? In my experience, kids lie for a variety of reasons. The most popular reasons are to avoid getting in trouble with adult authority figures or to make themselves sound better than they truly are. What I find especially intriguing is the flimsy lies that children think we’ll accept. You can catch [...]

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25 September 2008 ~ 2 Comments

Should Parents Use Grounding?

Grounding is defined as the restriction of a child’s freedom of movement for a specified amount of time or until the child meets a certain condition (or conditions). We are newly in the position of having to consider really using grounding as a method of discipline. We have seen positive results, but often wonder how [...]

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