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Just by playing a game on the internet, looking up a definition, or maybe checking out some music, they'll encounter some of the most vile and offensive words and images that can be expressed in the comments section of a YouTube video, a meme in their feed, or a group chat

The intensity of these ideas, the frequency with which kids see them, and the acceptance by so many that it's just part of internet life mean that it's critical to talk to kids about this difficult topic.

Are tech companies really that dedicated to free speech, or do they just want more users?

“If you wouldn’t say it, do it, or watch it with me in the room, it’s not okay.”

Sit down with your kids to create an “acceptable use” policy for your own home—they’re much more likely to follow the rules if they’ve had a say in writing them

Even if you enable restrictions, however, this isn’t a “set it and forget it” situation.

Many teachers I encounter have decided that they need to crack down on — if not entirely eradicate — screen distractions in their classrooms. (A minority of teachers accept it as a form of 21st century doodling.)

If the activity is engaging and challenging, there is an authentic audience, and prescribed time limits, students won’t mess around.

The more time I spend “teaching” teachers something from the front of the room, the more inclined they are to check email, Facebook, or whatever.

Use pretests.  Break the pretest up into subcategories that align with what you’ll be teaching in this unit.  Any student who gets 90% or higher in a subcategory does not need to complete the regular assignments on that topic and instead goes right to challenge work when you are focusing on that material.

Many online games are easy to differentiate, as they offer a variety of levels of gameplay.  You can assign the proper level to your students or once again allow the students to find their level of best fit.

If you need more problems for your top students, check out the fun  competitions at www.onlinemathleague.com, work on differentiated basic fact practice at www.themathfacts.com, or allow students to work on specific levels on www.ixl.com. Whatever you do, do something to ensure that all of your students are working on something they don’t already have mastered.

Cultural competence is the ability to successfully communicate and empathize with people from diverse cultures and incomes,

To build rapport, talk directly to children outside of class, using their names. Also begin class by checking in -- asking kids how they’re doing -- even if the misbehavior of the previous class reached biblical proportions.

Monitor your discourse style. Indirect requests (“Would you like to let me finish reading the directions?”) can confuse some children who are used to receiving explicit directives from their working-class parents.

check email only at set points during the day.

reserve time to read and respond to email after a long period of focused work, or at the time of day when your energy and creativity are at their lowest (this means that you can do higher value work at other times).

if the email will take less than two minutes to read and reply to, then take care of it right now, even if it's not a high priority.

John Irving, the author of The Cider House Rules, begins with his last sentence: I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

That is the crux of lesson planning right there -- endings and beginnings. If we fail to engage students at the start, we may never get them back. If we don't know the end result, we risk moving haphazardly from one activity to the next. Every moment in a lesson plan should tell.

The eight minutes that matter most are the beginning and endings. If a lesson does not start off strong by activating prior knowledge, creating anticipation, or establishing goals, student interest wanes, and you have to do some heavy lifting to get them back. If it fails to check for understanding, you will never know if the lesson's goal was attained.

Anxiety severely limits –and often blocks– all logical and rational problem-solving regions of the brain. So, don’t expect to talk someone out of anxiety or rationalize with them. When students don’t respond to verbal coaching, they aren’t being difficult or defiant. The biology of their brain simply makes it impossible for them to think with reason. To help a student break out of an anxiety spell, get them moving! Aerobic activity is the fastest, most effective way to break the virtuous cycle of anxiety. Next, get them talking about the problem. Have them describe what the problem is, why it is bothering them, and how they feel about it using a feeling wheel. To get our SOAR® Feelings Wheel, sign up for our “How Do I Feel?” Curriculum Kit in the blue box on the right of this page. This process does many things, it: draws the problem up to higher regions of the brain, minimizes the sense of “threat,” gives students a great sense of empowerment over the situation, and helps them better identify potential solutions. Finally, build their skills. Build their skills for managing the anxiety and skills for managing the situation that triggered the anxiety. To learn more about skills for overcoming stress and anxiety, check out the SOAR Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum.