Two things happened recently that prompted me to write this post — the first was the arrival of “NEA Today”with an article titled Lessons on Loss, and the second was that the father of one of my student’s died.

In thinking about it, it seems to me that there is much more written in the vein of the NEA Today article (which focuses on a school coping with the loss of one of their students) than with how best a teacher can help a student dealing with the loss of a close family member or friend. The first instance is obviously tragic and traumatic, and needs to be discussed. But since the second instance happens far more frequently, I thought I’d share a couple of resources that might be useful.

The first is a short article from The Apple titled “How to: Help Your Students Deal with Grief and Loss.” I think it offers some helpful tips.

The second is a book titled “Remembering With Love.” It’s a book I give to my mainstream high school students, and provides short, page-long vignettes. It’s designed as a guide throughout the first year of loss (first month, first holiday, etc.). In fact, over the past seventeen years, I’ve probably given over fifty copies away to students, colleagues and friends who have suffered a loss.

There’s a story behind this…

My first wife died seventeen years ago. Linda’s profession was being a…bereavement counselor. It was a devastating time for me and, in fact, I look at my entire life through the lens of “pre-Linda’s death” and “post-Linda’s death.” Because of her work, there were obviously a lot of bereavement resources around our house. I went through it all, and nothing seemed to really fit. One day, I was just browsing through a bookstore and found “Remembering With Love.” I found it very helpful, and I believe that everybody — students and adults alike — whom I’ve since given a copy has felt the same way.

Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section on how you have helped students experiencing grief, or of other resources you’ve found useful.

There’s a very interesting article coming out in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It’s called Building A Better Teacher.

There’s a lot of stuff there worth thinking about.

One thing that stuck out for me, though, was that the writer, Elizabeth Green, wrote a lot about the importance of connecting classroom management with content knowledge.

I wasn’t sure, though, if I agreed with how she treated that issue. I may also be misinterpreting what she wrote.

I’m convinced that effective classroom management is a key ability any teacher must have. I’m not as convinced that a teacher must have an enormous amount of content knowledge in the subject they’re teaching (see my previous post — and the lively discussion in its comments section — How Much “Content” Knowledge Do You Really Need To Be An Effective Teacher?). Obviously, you need some basics (the article refers to a teacher who did a math problem incorrectly), but it seems to me for most classes (except for advanced ones), a huge amount of teacher knowledge is not necessary.

I do believe, however, that, in addition to classroom management skills, a teacher needs to have a good curriculum and training in effective instructional strategies to deliver and engage students in it. I’ve also seen that there are a number of very effective instructional strategies that are not “content-specific” and, instead, can be used effectively across content areas. In fact, Pebble Creek Labs has done an exceptional job of both good curriculum development and teaching instructional methods to teachers across the country and in our school. I write about how I apply some of them with English Language Learners in my upcoming book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work.

I think focusing on those “universal” instructional methods might make things more simple in teacher development.

Maybe it’s a matter of semantics, and she might mean the same thing. For example, she talks about “content can’t be completely divorced from mechanics.” But it’s unclear — to me at least — if she thinks “content” is the same as “curriculum” and if “mechanics,” in addition to meaning classroom management, also means instructional strategies.

Nevertheless, it’s one of the better articles I’ve seen looking at some of the issues involved in helping teachers get better.

I’d be interested in hearing other people’s feedback.

Thanks to The Educated Reporter for the tip on the article.

(Just a quick addendum: After seeing the clips, and re-reading the article, I have to say that, though the techniques sound good and I’m sure would be somewhat helpful at any school, I suspect they look a whole lot better at charter schools where they can be far more selective of their students. The clips appear to be from charters, and it also appears that the primary person profiled in the article has most of his experience in charters. You might want to see Charter Schools and “Creaming”)