Jennifer Gonzalez on Answering Student Questions with a Question

            “One of our main goals as teachers should be to build students’ independence,” says Jennifer Gonzalez in this Cult of Pedagogy article/podcast. “The more we do for our students and the less they do for themselves, the more we perpetuate a cycle where they become helpless and dependent on us.”          

            Gonzalez kicks herself for answering too many student questions when she was a teacher. “I used to think of them as baby birds in a nest, with all of their beaks open, waiting for the mother bird to feed them,” she says. “I remember feeling like I was constantly racing around trying to meet everyone’s needs.” It’s quicker to answer the question than to push students to do more of the work, but “that short-term efficiency comes at a long-term cost,” she says. “It keeps us working harder than we need to and prevents students from developing the habits that will make them more independent.”

            Gonzalez’s suggestion to her former haggard self and many other overextended teachers: when students ask a certain kind of question, pause and answer them with questions that build self-sufficiency. And pose your questions with the right tone of voice and a smile, not in a way that embarrasses kids. Some examples:

• Where might you find that information?
• Where on the handout could you look for that?
• What resource could help you answer that question?
• What is our task completion routine? (when students ask what to do when they’re finished). 

The last question-and-answer exchange points to an important facet of classroom organization: an established routine and resources that will engage students when they finish early. For many other student questions, a redirecting question assumes clear instructions and readily available resources.

 “EduTip 33: Answer More Questions with Questions” by Jennifer Gonzalez in Cult of Pedagogy, September 7, 2025; Gonzalez can be reached at gonzjenn@cultofpedagogy.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1103 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Should Middle Schools Have Recess?

            “Just because students have entered middle school doesn’t mean they no longer need recess,” say Catherine Ramstetter and Charlene Woodham Brickman (Successful Healthy Children) in Principal Leadership. They point to these research-based reasons:

            - The American Academy of Pediatrics says that breaks from cognitive work help consolidate newly acquired information for later retention and retrieval.

            - Recess helps adolescents deal with puberty’s biological, social, and academic stressors, and is especially helpful for students who’ve experienced adverse childhood events.

            - Kids need time to engage in student-directed activities that promote social competence and protect against victimization, substance abuse, and poor mental health.

            - Face-to-face time with peers is especially important given pervasive cellphone use and the decline in time spent socializing with peers outside of school.

            - Time for informal interaction can contribute to an inclusive, positive school culture and a sense of connection to the school, which extends to academic learning.

            But with middle schools’ tight bell schedules and the common recess-is-for-elementary-school mindset, recess often doesn’t happen in middle schools. Ramstetter and Brickman have these suggestions for school leaders:

            - Present the evidence and seek staff buy-in, making the case that unstructured breaks support  students’ growing need for autonomy, balanced with the need for safety.

            - Provide multiple locations that are conducive to social interaction.

            - Include students in planning, asking for their interests and ideas.

            - Explore having recess before lunch, which reduces food waste.

            - If recess is right after lunch, let students transition when they’re finished eating, versus dismissing them by table.

            - Set age-appropriate expectations on what students can and cannot do during recess.

            - Get students involved in managing equipment – for example, are soccer balls inflated and where are they stored? 

 “The Case for Middle School Recess” by Catherine Ramstetter and Charlene Woodham Brickman in Principal Leadership, September 2025 (Vol. 26, #1, pp. 19-21)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1103 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Handling the Transition from Middle to High School

            In this Principal Leadership article, Pittsburgh administrator Dan Beck describes five ways his 1,300-student high school supports incoming ninth graders: 

• Admin and counselor looping – Students and their families are assigned to one of two assistant principals based on students’ last names and stay with the same AP through graduation. Two 9th-grade counselors also split their student caseloads by students’ last names, and students connect with a new counselor for grades 10-12. Relationship-building begins with 8th-grade orientation meetings before students arrive, and the assistant principals conduct personal visits for students with IEPs and service arrangements. 

• Junior-freshman mentoring – Juniors apply and 60 are selected to act as mentors for incoming ninth graders. On Move Up Day, mentors wear red shirts and greet their mentees with the message, We've Got Your Back, and also support them during Freshman Rush, when students are introduced to clubs and activities they can join. During the year, ninth graders meet with their mentors once a week during homeroom periods. Periodically there are social gatherings when mentors focus on teamwork, collaboration, and school spirit. There are also four senior student mentors who identify individual ninth graders who might need a stronger connection, support the junior mentors, and consult with teachers on questions and concerns. 

• Modified block schedule – Tuesday through Friday, there’s a flex block in the middle of the day (dubbed Academic Resource Time) when students can get remediation or enrichment in a content area or on a specific assignment, connecting with teachers and counselors throughout the school year. 

• Ninth-grade homerooms – First-year students are assigned to 20-student homerooms that meet Mondays (or Day One) for 25 minutes, the other days of the week for 10 minutes. Homeroom teachers get to know students and deliver a set of lessons on themes, including “High School 101”, study strategies, test-taking skills, and relationship-building. 

• Freshman seminar – Incoming ninth graders meet in groups with their counselor during a period on their Day One schedule to address common transitioning challenges and connect with other students assigned to that counselor. Topics include handling the demands of high school, good study habits, social media awareness, and postsecondary planning. In the latter part of the year, students meet individually with their counselor (parents are invited to join) to discuss their sophomore schedules and long-term plans. 

 “When the Only Constant Is Change” by Dan Beck in Principal Leadership, September 2025 (Vol. 26, #1, pp. 22-25); Beck can be reached at dbeck@uscsd.k12.pa.us.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1103 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Free Online Math Materials from the Math Learning Center

            In a sidebar in her editor’s letter in Mathematics Teacher, Suz Antink gives links to free math materials from the Math Learning Center: 

- Story collections for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten 

- Problem solving story boxes for pre-kindergarten to grade 2 

- Concept Quests for grades 2-5 

- Problems of the Week for PreK to 12 

“Looking Forward to a New School Year” by Suz Antink in Mathematics Teacher, August 2025 (Vol. 118, #8, pp. 586-587)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1099 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Fifth Graders Use a Hackathon to Tackle a Real-Life Environmental Issue

            In this Elementary School Journal article, Adiv Gal (Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology, and the Arts) describes how fifth graders in a rural school in northern Israel studied the interaction of two species of birds competing for nesting space in the roofs of school buildings. Starting in 2015, one species, the lesser kestrel, which had lived in the area for decades, was being displaced by another, the common myna, which is one of the world’s most invasive species (myna were introduced to Israel in the 1990s as pets and then established a population in the wild).

            As part of an ecology curriculum unit, students took notes on a burgeoning conflict between the two species:

• Mynas displaced kestrels from their nesting boxes, reducing available spaces to nest.
• Mynas stole food from kestrels during chick-rearing time, decreasing chicks’ supply.
• Mynas attacked kestrels midflight, preventing them from reaching their nests.
• Mynas knocked down kestrel chicks as they waited for food.
• Mynas sometimes killed and fed on kestrel chicks. 

The result was a marked decline in the kestrel population around the school.

    As students observed this interaction and drew on what they had learned about ecology, they began to ask ethically related questions: Should the school get involved in the conflict between these two species? Was it right to take the side of the kestrels? After all, the myna did not choose to be an invasive species. Was there a way for the two species to coexist peacefully?

            Teachers seized the opportunity to help students go beyond the standard ecology curriculum and explore real-life science that was unfolding right before their eyes. Teachers decided to implement an 8-hour hackathon as the culminating activity, using 21st-century technology to address the age-old question of survival. Students worked in small teams in their classrooms, equipped with laptops and internet access, with ornithology experts on hand to help. Teams did online research, thought through effective approaches to the myna/kestrel conflict, and built models of their proposed solutions. Teams then presented their findings and recommendations in a plenary meeting, followed by a gala dinner, with outside experts there to comment on the solutions.

            Teams came up with four possible technological solutions to the problem, each making use of a camera that could distinguish between the myna and kestrels:

• Water is sprayed on myna when they approach nesting boxes.
• The sounds of a hawk are played when myna approach.
• The mynas’ nesting box entrances are closed.
• A dummy of a hawk will jump out of a small hiding place when mynas approach. 

Gal says the hackathon was a great success, engaging students and building a number of skills: creativity and innovation, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and interdisciplinary skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility, critical thinking and problem solving, ethical reasoning, collaboration and communication, media and information literacy, use of technology, and science knowledge.

            “The teachers also benefited from this innovative approach,” Gal concludes. “They were able to move beyond traditional pedagogical techniques and explore new teaching methods that engage students more deeply. The hackathon required them to facilitate learning rather than simply deliver information, guiding students through complex problem-solving processes.” 

“Holistic Education Through Hackathon” by Adiv Gal in Elementary School Journal, June 2025 (Vol. 125, #4, pp. 549-575); Gal can be reached at adiv.gal@smkb.ac.il. See Memo 813 for related ecology activity involving birds flying into a school’s windows.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1095 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

A Novel Way for Teachers to Get to Know Students

            “Positive student-teacher relationships are the foundation of meaningful school experiences,” say Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Lupita Romo-Gonzalez, and Damhee Dee Dee Hong (University of California/Santa Barbara) in this Elementary School Journal article. They describe how a small predominantly Mexican-American school district in California gave families in grades 4-6 a Fujimax Polaroid camera, film for 20 photographs, a small photo album, step-by-step instructions on how to use the camera, and information on the ethics of taking pictures and getting permission from subjects. Students were asked to take photos of their lives outside of school, including family members and how they spent their time, and consider sharing albums with their teachers and talking them through the photos. 

            Students were enthusiastic about the project; for many, it was the first time they had taken physical, non-digital photos. They appreciated being able to decide what to photograph and who would be allowed to see their albums. Kids snapped photos of family members, friends, stuffed animals, snow globes, gems from Mexico, computer games, piggy banks, decorations, religious artifacts, decorations for Muslim holidays, pets, favorite foods, books, and themselves as they engaged in various activities.

            “With 20 photographs to capture their lives,” say the authors, “the students in our study had to make choices about what to include and what to leave out. Although many students disliked the limitations on the number of photographs they could take and named people, places, or things that were missing from their albums, by and large, they felt well represented by the photographs they took.” In interviews, students said they loved the opportunity to do a show-and-tell for teachers about their homes, families, interests, and culture. One sixth grader had photos showing his interest in paleontology and hoped his teacher would make a curriculum connection. 

            “Educators and school leaders can take these results as a starting point from which to design and launch their own context-specific initiatives,” say the authors, “– using photographs, videos, drawings, or other means of personal expression – to increase teacher understanding of students in ways that center student agency.” 

“Building Classroom Relationships Through Photovoice” by Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Lupita Romo-Gonzalez, and Damhee Dee Dee Hong in Elementary School Journal, June 2025 (Vol. 125, #4, pp. 675-700); Sattin-Bajaj can be reached at carolynsattin-bajaj@ucsb.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1095 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Shaping the U.S. History Curriculum in a Contentious Time

            In this article in Time, James Kloppenberg (Harvard University) pushes back on the recent assertion that the U.S. history curriculum has been rewritten in a way that replaces “objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” That’s not correct, he says, but it is true that since the 1960s, the curriculum has moved beyond the previous emphasis on America’s heroic achievements on the world stage to a more nuanced and balanced narrative. 

            “Historians have been asking different questions and probing other dimensions of our past,” says Kloppenberg. “Combining old and new methods, including the discovery of previously unknown sources and the use of statistical analysis, historians digging in the archives have uncovered solid evidence concerning the expansion of freedom for many Americans and the denial of freedom for many others. The experiences of enslaved Africans, women, Indigenous people, ordinary soldiers, owners of small businesses, and countless other Americans have emerged from a generation’s painstaking research into a new light.” 

            The revised curriculum is entirely compatible with telling the story of the nation’s myriad accomplishments and being “a flag-waving patriot with an abiding love of the U.S.,” as Kloppenberg describes himself. “But to see American history as simply a narrative of heroism would be a lie unbecoming of a great nation,” he says. “Telling Americans only those parts of our complicated history consistent with preconceived notions of American grandeur is unacceptable to everyone who cherishes our nation and its history.”

            But aren’t historical facts just facts? It’s not that simple, says Koppenberg. “From the almost infinite array of information historical actors leave behind them, historians put together interpretations consistent with recognized rules of evidence and reasoning.” There are heated debates about those interpretations in peer-reviewed journals, and what emerges needs to be backed up by facts and documentation. “Although entitled to their opinions,” he says, “historians are never entitled to their own facts.”

“The Truth and Sanity of American History” by James Kloppenberg in Time, July 7, 2025 (Vol. 206, #1-2, pp. 22-23); Kloppenberg can be reached at jkloppen@fas.harvard.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1094 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.