In Japanese schools, character instruction comes before or with academic training. As an example, students must clean up after themselves as there are no janitors. This sense of academic and social responsibility transcends the rush to impose instruction and tests that is favored in American classrooms. 

I am in my 20th year with the DOE. Increasingly, we have assigned curricula for each subject. I am fine with teaching curricula chosen by my district, but it has to be sound and doable. One serious problem with many of these curricula is the ridiculous length of lesson plans.

While sitting around the table with my family this past Thanksgiving, we took turns telling each other what we were most thankful for. Well, I forgot to thank the United Federation of Teachers for your $4,000 Albert Shanker college scholarship.

This is a fantastic program and partnership with NYU. We need more programs and availability for our students on the autism spectrum. The DOE also needs to provide more in-person training for teachers and staff to support our kids not only within the Nest and Horizon programs but also in our general student population.

Take principals out of play. A school counselor counsels the DOE about how best to address the paraprofessional shortage.

I remember when we didn’t get any preps AND had lunch duty AND had to physically turn in a lesson plan book every Monday for principals to comment on and mark up in red AND many other since-rectified issues.