Being an observer in a classroom can be extremely enlightening or extremely frustrating. Students can be engaged in learning or engaged in what they are currently playing with in their desks. Unfortunately when a teacher is trying to teach 20 or more students at one time, that task may seem almost impossible because he or she is attempting to maneuver content, control large behaviors, and keep all students learning at the same speed.

How can new teachers be prepared for the challenges of the urban classroom? College professor Dave Weiss, who taught for more than 30 years in Chicago, offers some personal suggestions in this week's Pulse blog post.
Some school districts have already instituted a one-year student teaching program. This allows the novice to experience the practicalities of beginning the first day of school and the end of the school year. This would be an excellent program if instituted...

Imagine, knowing that your birthday would always fall on the same day each and every year. Would it be helpful if you knew that all holidays would also be celebrated on the same day? Our current calendar, called the Gregorian calendar, has been used for 450 years. Two professors at John Hopkins University think we need a new calendar. Their calendar would eliminate all leap years, which are added ever 4 years to keep our 365.2422 day year from getting our calendar out of sorts. With the...

Using current events in the classroom-new idea:
Love to snowboard? Seems a crow in Russia does, too. Caught on video, a hooded crow found a round plastic jar lid, perched it on a slope of the roof and repeatedly slide down. He didn't fly above the lid, he planted his feet on the lid and off he went, displaying play-like behavior.Scientists say crows are very intelligent and have great memories. On...