Great Responsibility Begins With Great Trust

Sincere thanks to the nearly one hundred teachers and parents who emailed or tweeted me with quotes for this piece. I hope it will challenge at least a few of you to turn over the keys to your child's life and education to - gasp - your child. I've been writing a lot about promoting autonomy and intrinsic motivation in kids (stay tuned, the book's almost done!) and if we could just return to a place of independence, autonomy, and faith in our kids, if we could just show them that we believe they will do the right thing, they just might live up to that challenge. You can read the article here. If you like it, share it!

Looks like it's getting read! Thanks, everyone!!!

Specific thanks for quotes go to Mindi Dench, Christiana Whittington, Elena Marshall, Lisa Heffernan, Gina Parnaby, Bryan MacDonald, and Dana Salvador.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

In today's installment of The Parent-Teacher Conference, I am both teacher and parent, asker and askee. I need your help with a piece I am putting together about PowerSchool and the parent portal that allows for 24/7 access to students' grades and attendance. Here's what I am curious about:

1. If you are a parent, do you use the parent portal at your child's school?
2. How often?
3. What, in your view, are the pros to this kind of software?
4. Conversely, what are the cons?

5. If you are a teacher or administrator, does your school offer parent access to PowerSchool?
6. Who decided to grant access, the superintendent? Head of school? Principal? Committee?
7. How's it all working out at your school?

And, of course, if you have any thoughts on the topic, feel free to use the contact me form over there ------------>
or email me at teacherlahey AT gmail DOT com.

Thanks!