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Here's a question.  

I allow my students to read books that deal with taboo topics such as drugs, teen pregnancy, and that contain occasional curse words, as long as they have literary merit and are reasonably age-appropriate.  I tell students I know they are mature enough to understand that those words are there the author wanted them to be part of the story, to create realistic characters and settings, not because they are welcome in our classroom community.  Students seem to do well with that fine line. 

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By Beth Perce and Cara Pence

Beth Perce teaches fifth through eighth grade special education in Peoria, Illinois. She serves as a Virtual Community Organizer for the Illinois New Millennium Initiative. Cara Pence is a seventh grade reading and language arts teacher in Peoria, and is also a member of the Illinois NMI.

On May 3 and 4, the Great Lakes TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) hosted a conference focusing on teacher evaluation. TURN supports union models that help create and maintain...

The longer I work with 11th and 12th graders (this is my 5th year), the clearer it becomes to me that education really begins when a child is in the womb-- or even before. Lost time is rarely made up.

Each year a few of the 17-year-olds I teach light up in our English class and say some variation of: "This is the first book that I actually read!" It's intended as a positive comment, but I quietly take it as a crushing reminder of the collateral damage done by years of not reading and not learning--- a pattern that starts at home. In my experience, the students who say that tend to write in fragmented English, struggle to self-advocate effectively, and do not envision for themselves a realistic long-term path to stability in...