Sharing moments of levity and hope from the education world amid the mass disruption of schooling and life from the coronavirus.

HELP is on hand for parents hoping to inspire their children at home during the coronavirus lockdown – and it’s all free.

Colin Turner thought he understood the dynamics of race and privilege. Until one of his students called him out for some insensitive comments he'd made in class.

One particularly tense staff meeting helped educator Robert Parker rethink how his school celebrated Black History Month.

Quiz yourself: What do census statistics reveal about school enrollment, classroom diversity, and education outcomes, and how could the 2020 Census impact school services?

And four strategies for fixing the underlying problems most often laid bare, from Great Schools Partnership’s Craig Kesselheim.

The new question-of-the-week is: What are your best classroom-management tips?

Assuring a positive student-teacher relationship is easier said than done. Here’s what veteran educators advise about how to make that relationship work, and what to do when things fall apart.

My job as a teacher is to help students learn, not to use extrinsic motivation to get them to work, writes Miriam Plotinsky.

Students are understandably anxious about COVID-19. Teachers must address those fears in age-appropriate and educational ways, writes 4th grade teacher Ivy Higgins.

School segregation may feel intractable, but there are steps school and district leaders can take. Michele Shannon would know.

YouthTruth asked 104,000 school staff, students, and their families how they perceive the fairness of discipline at their schools. The results can help start conversations about discipline policy and leading by listening.

A collection of news stories from this week.

WHILE watching the daily Downing Street press conferences it is possible to feel a range of emotions. Frustration, for instance, as one inquiry after another goes unanswered, or disappointment at the quality of the questioning.

READING about the Brooks family and their foraging for food (“Family serves a dinner-time treat ... Japanese Knotweed crumble”, The Herald, May 2) provoked very happy memories of another forager-par-excellence; Rosalind Burgess, the Skye weaver, cook, and writer of an excellent book on how to use the things you grow and forage.

Force or farce?

Until now desktop users had the option to opt-out of the 2017 interface redesign, but next month you'll be forced to use it (and may also need to upgrade to a new browser).

Ban bland tech; these Valentine's Day gift ideas will warm their heart.

“I AM an Asian Tiger Mum, for whom education is the only way to success for my children, and excellence in music, sport and ballet is a prerequisite to living any sort of life at all.”

Homeschooling isn't a decision to be taken on lightly, but COVID-19 just changed the calculus, writes Michael Q. McShane.

By providing authentic opportunities to practice self-direction, connect with the larger community, collaborate with peers, and develop their respect for social responsibility, the annual Magnolia Makers Market is one way Montessori For All works toward preparing children to be successful leaders in

Online directories for residential phone numbers have morphed into paid-for services that people largely use for background checks. If I just want a phone number, I'm out of luck.

You can learn almost anything on YouTube. It is very handy. But navigating through the crud to get to that educational material is a nightmare.

University of Texas at Austin researchers find that the presence of your mobile phone in the room is all it takes to crater overall brain power. Here's how to use that to your advantage.

Babies as young as 12 months are exposed to nearly an hour a day of screen time, despite warnings from pediatricians to avoid digital media exposure for children under a year and a half, according to a new analysis.

Teachers unleash a flood of creative responses to one of the Most Persistent Teaching Questions of All Time: How do you get ever-chatty middle schoolers to quiet down and pay attention?

One teacher embraced the technique, with encouragement from a former district administrator. But he was told he had to reverse course, in part because of parent complaints.

CAN I tell you how I feel? I feel, sometimes, like everyone in my life has suddenly been reduced to flat, distant images on a computer screen, like we’re in Star Trek. And I don’t like it.

Rocker’s bum note

The first season of the Netflix political potboiler was rich with education-policy plotlines, and we're hoping for more of the same.

From age 17, Ana Maria prayed to serve God in Switzerland. While she waited, she became a dance instructor with no idea dance would become her ministry.

An OM worker in Cambodia shares about how a new training she is attending is transforming the way she does ministry.

Talented young referees and international women referees are in Nyon this week for the latest courses in UEFA's referee development programme.

Three teams of youngsters from the United States were given the chance to impress at the UEFA Champions Festival with a series of special exhibition matches in Munich.

The Olympiastadion was the venue as German youngsters battled it out to be named UEFA Young Champions and win UEFA Champions League final tickets, in a tournament organised by adidas.

Russia's Teenagers Football League, the springboard to success for Yuri Zhirkov and Alan Dzagoev, has held a series of events aimed at uniting different faiths and nationalities.

Education Week catches you up on the week gone by with a thoughtful look at recent news in K-12 education.

Instead of fixating on the word gap and other false language-skills dilemmas, focus on what's really hurting students, writes Olivia Obeso.

The swirl of attention around Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s story of being forced out of a teaching job when she was pregnant intensifies the spotlight on her background and K-12 credentials.

The extent to which young adults' laboratory-confirmed sexually transmitted disease results and self-reported sexual behaviors are consistent has not been assessed in a nationally representative sample.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether young adults' reports of recent sexual behavior (presence of penile/vaginal sex in the previous 12 months) correspond with the presence of laboratory-confirmed nonviral STDs assessed by nucleic acid amplification testing. (Read the full article)

Cardiovascular risk factors predict the development of premature atherosclerosis. As the number of risk factors increases, so does the extent of these lesions. Assessment of cardiovascular risk factors is an accepted practice in adults but is not used in pediatrics.

In this study, the authors discuss how the presence of ≥2 cardiovascular risk factors is associated with vascular changes in adolescents. The findings were compared with the Patholobiological Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth risk score to demonstrate that a simple method of clustering is a reliable tool to use in clinical practice. (Read the full article)

Several correlational studies documented that participants who would be classified as "pathological" video gamers demonstrate a pattern of correlations with other variables that are comorbid (eg, depression) or occur with (eg, poorer grades and increased hostility) other addictions.

Following a large sample across 2 years, this study provides needed data on risk factors for becoming a pathological gamer, how long pathological gaming lasts, outcomes, and whether it is a primary problem or is a symptom of comorbid problems. (Read the full article)

Chlamydia testing among adolescents and young women without symptoms is recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force, but only approximately one-half of eligible young women presenting for health care are screened appropriately.

Our work indicates that providers screen young women for chlamydia differentially according to patient age, race/ethnicity, insurance status, and sexual health history. Biases in chlamydia screening may contribute to higher reported rates of chlamydia among minority and poor young women. (Read the full article)

Educators, public health authorities, and law enforcement are confronting an increasing number of cases in which youth made sexual images of themselves and other minors and transmitted them via cell phones and the Internet.

This study provides the first detailed and comprehensive national estimate of the percentage of youth who create and distribute various kinds of sexual images. (Read the full article)

Extreme preterm birth is associated with developmental shortcomings that may reduce exercise capacity and participation in physical activities in later life. The number of studies addressing these issues in adolescent populations is limited, test methods differ, and results are diverging.

Exercise capacity after preterm birth was in the same range as in term-born control subjects. Participation in physical activity was lower in preterm subjects compared with control subjects; however, the response to exercise in terms of increased aerobic capacity was similar. (Read the full article)

Previous research has demonstrated that young children with traumatic brain injury are at elevated risk of poor outcomes, particularly following severe injuries. These deficits persist until at least 5 years postinsult. Factors predicting outcomes in this age group have not been established.

This study follows survivors of very early traumatic brain injury into adolescence. Results indicate that severe injury is associated with poorest outcome, but after 3 years, the gap between children with severe traumatic brain injury and peers stabilizes. (Read the full article)

The evidence base for obesity prevention is extremely limited. Although minority youth are at higher risk of obesity, and early childhood is a critical period for prevention, only 1 program has demonstrated sustained effects on obesity in young minority children.

Among youth at high risk for obesity based on income, minority status, and child behavior problems, early intervention that promotes effective parenting led to meaningful differences in obesity in preadolescence. Early family intervention is an innovative and promising approach. (Read the full article)

Prior to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, 34 states enacted laws extending eligibility for parents’ health insurance to adult children. Few studies have examined their impact; a single study found no change in insurance 1 year after enactment.

States that expanded parents’ insurance eligibility to young adults were associated with higher rates of insurance coverage, identification of a personal clinician, physical exams, and lower forgone care due to cost. The Affordable Care Act may similarly improve access to care. (Read the full article)

Adolescence is a time of risk taking, with poor inner-city youth at greater risk than the general population for drug use, school failure, adjudication, and teen parenthood. Little is known regarding these youths’ perceptions and intentions in early childhood.

Poor inner-city children were surprisingly idealistic regarding their future. Despite this, by late adolescence most experienced 1 or more trajectory-altering events. Early childhood experiences, exposure to violence and poor home environment, were factors most strongly associated with these outcomes. (Read the full article)