Creativity isn't formally assessed or evaluated on tests or report cards, so teachers rarely plan lessons that encourage it. In fact, many teachers unintentionally stifle children's creativity when they cut off student's oral responses or stop them from adding more to their work so that they can bring the class back to the task at hand. Instead,…

In January, four juniors died in an automobile accident; in February a member of the previous year's graduating class committed suicide; in March a member of the faculty died suddenly; and a crazed gunman killed three current and one former student. Spring 1999 was a season of sadness. Several Penncrest faculty meetings were devoted to reviewing…

A harried leader is not a helpful leader. Schools need calm, well-balanced, helpful leaders as much as they need visionary ones. In fact, in this era of frenetic change in schools, principals should devote at least as much time to helping teachers be more focused and less frantic as they do to formulating new visions for the school or embarking on…

Handling problems in schools is inevitable. Administrators often must make decisions on critical issues and incidents, such as determining disciplinary actions and consequences for student misbehavior, and confrontations with irate parents. In all such cases, they must be able to provide necessary assistance in solving problems while avoiding the…

In recent years, bullying seems to have become more serious and more pervasive. Research indicates that 15% to 20% of all students are victimized by bullies at some point in their school careers. Clearly, bullying is a problem that schools must recognize and address. Bullying has three distinguishing characteristics: (1) it is intentional; (2) it…

Something wicked is being chased out of the classrooms and hallways at a high school in Massachusetts, something prevalent in schools across the globe: bullying. For generations, victims have carried invisible scars or nursed open wounds. Concerns related to bullying have been confirmed by extensive research over the past decade, including…

As a nurse who has worked at several campus health centers, including, before last spring's shootings, the health center at Virginia Tech, the author knows that more students than ever have diagnosed mental illness and take psychiatric medications. Very few pose any threat to themselves or others. Only in extremely rare cases does mental illness…

Masochism, the irrational self-infliction of pain, is more easily defined than understood. Once, a teacher used the word "cutting" only reference to a student skipping class. But, in recent years, it has taken on additional meaning. Cutting, or self-injury, is a deliberate self-harming behavior but without conscious suicidal ideation. To define…

Communication is the cornerstone of any successful leadership enterprise, including education leadership. It is counterintuitive to think that an excellent education leader could possess a keen vision and have no ability to communicate that vision to students and staff members. Discovering and implementing the rules of communicating effectively…

Every two hours and 15 minutes in the United States, a person who is under the age of 25 years old completes a suicide. As such, everyone must be on the watch for the signs of adolescent suicide, and everyone must know how to respond when they come face to face with it. All must confront this epidemic and provide space within schools for students…

Condensed from "The Kiwanis Magazine, Volume 53 (September 1968), 22-25, 42.

Generally, when a student or a staff member coped with the psychological aftermath of a tragedy, they did so without the involvement-or responsibility-of school personnel. But educators have come to recognize that schools play a critical role in any crisis response and care system serving children and youth. This is true whether teachers are…

Violence affects one in every five teenagers. Everyday 160,000 students miss school because they fear attack, intimidation, or bullying. While tragedies such as school shootings are rare, many youngsters feel threatened. School officials and administrators take steps to make school safer, yet many teachers remain frustrated. Violence prevention…

As of July, more than 1,200 children had lost parents in the war in Iraq, and thousands more had parents with serious injuries, according to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniform Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. The war, which began three and a half years ago, has resulted in the deaths of more than 2,600 U.S.…