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In Language Arts, Ysaaca Axelrod, Jenny Brownson, Candance Doer-Stevens, and Denise Ives suggest these children’s picturebooks to explain the impact of climate change and possible courses of action:
- Wild Berries by Julie Flett - Our Green City by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
- The Last Polar Bear by Jean Craighead George, illustrated by Wendell Minor
- The Boy and the Whale by Mordicai Gerstein - The First Blade of Sweetgrass by Suzanne Greenlaw and Gabriel Grey, illustrated by Nancy Baker
- Luna and Me: The True Story of a Girl Who Lived in a Tree to Save a Forest by Jenny Su Kostecki Shaw
- We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade
- Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Bridget George
- Amara and the Bats by Emma Reynolds
- The Water Walkers by Carol Ann Trembath, illustrated by David Craig
“Representations of Hope for Climate Action: An Analysis of Environmental Narratives in Children’s Picturebooks” by Ysaaca Axelrod, Jenny Brownson, Candance Doer-Stevens, and Denise Ives in Language Arts, March 2025 (Vol. 102, #4, p. 245-254)
Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1106 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.
In this Cult of Pedagogy article, John Spencer says project-based learning is “often structured in ways that exclude students who might need a different approach to thrive. Too often, PBL becomes a space where accommodations and differentiation fall by the wayside.” He suggests these steps to ensure that every student can benefit while doing projects:
• Manage the extraneous cognitive load. Without structure and clarity, some kids spend the first three days goofing off. Spencer suggests cutting down on unnecessary complexity, breaking the project into subtasks, analyzing the skills that will be used, and providing students with a roadmap and a to-do list.
• Use gradual release of responsibility. “Sometimes the issue isn’t academic so much as choice paralysis,” says Spencer. Start with small steps and have students take on more control as they proceed.
• Provide optional scaffolds. Use the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to make supports available to all students that are especially helpful to some.
• Be strategic with grouping and establish group norms. One approach is to sort students into three tiers based on skill and create mixed groups within those tiers – the aim being to prevent one student from doing all the work.
• Provide additional processing time. “PBL has a reputation for being loud and chaotic,” says Spencer, which can be overwhelming for some students. Building in processing pauses can help students who need to slow down and think things through.
Will this amount of structure rob project-based learning of its adventurous essence? “Real-world relevance doesn’t come from chaos but from intentionality,” says Spencer. “Authenticity comes from connecting the project to real-world challenges, providing context, and allowing students to engage in meaningful, sustained problem-solving.”
“Making Project-Based Learning Accessible for Everyone” by John Spencer in Cult of Pedagogy, September 14, 2025
Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1105 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.
“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:
“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.
“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.
In this Principal Leadership article, Pittsburgh administrator Dan Beck describes five ways his 1,300-student high school supports incoming ninth graders: