Tag Archives: social-emotional learning

Morphine

When I left Vermont in August of 1996 to seek my fortune as a doctoral candidate in history, I intended to return posthaste–if not to Vermont, than as near to the state as possible. Last August (of 2019) I finally made it back here to work in a public school system. I’d visited every summer for many years, but as I learned slowly and the hard way (like the way I learn everything in my life, alas), living in a place is quite a bit different than visiting it.

Of course I was aware of the opioid crisis in the state–it has been national news–and a national problem, after all–but I hadn’t had a chance to see it up close.

Now I have, and I can tell you that in the 23 years I was away, opioids cut a wide swath through the social and economic fabric of this fine state. So, for any young person who thinks that trying opioids won’t necessarily lead to personal disaster, here is a reading on morphine along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cerebral Cortex

Although I prepared this reading on the cerebral cortex and wrote its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for a specific student and purpose, I cannot remember who and what they were. I don’t know if this has any use in a high school classroom, but there it is if you need it. This might be a set of documents, properly revised, for a professional development workshop.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Enriched Foods

When I was in middle school, one of the classes we took was called “Home Economics.” It was a practical knowledge course on how to shop and cook for oneself. I can’t imagine how my life in this pandemic would have proceeded without the knowledge I took from that course.

This reading on enriched foods and its vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet are the kind of thing we would have learned about in Home Ec, as it was known. I didn’t understand the point of the class at the time, so I apologize to the universe in general and the teachers of the course in particular for my uninterest and generally bad behavior that semester.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Uterus

OK, health teachers, here is a reading on the human uterus along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I guess there’s not much to say other than that.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Sugar

Here is a reading on sugar, certainly a cornerstone of my own nutrition-free diet, and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Homosexuality

When I started working with troubled adolescents in 1990, I was surprised to see that the the clinical professionals with whom I worked, tread very lightly, if at all, around the issue of sexual identity in the kids we saw. In fact, on the only occasion I saw it addressed directly, one of the more highly placed professionals in the program angrily denied that it was a precipitant to or a factor in other clinical issues.

I’m not qualified to speak deeply about clinical pathology, but at the same time I knew that gay kids coming of age in a deeply homophobic society faced challenges that I clearly hadn’t experience and therefore didn’t understand. I did know that gay kids suffered a very high rate of suicidality.

Things have changed, fortunately. Here is a reading on homosexuality along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has, along the way in my time as a teacher, become a high-interest item, so I have tagged it as such.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s Advice to Teachers

“Endeavor, first, to broaden your children’s sympathies and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love and kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions and their activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in their hearts.”

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) as Quoted in The Teacher and the Taught (1963)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Testis

OK, last but not least this afternoon, for you health teachers, here is a short reading on testis along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you can use them.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Term of Art: Word Salad

“Word Salad: One of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia is a disturbance in the use of language. Rather than select words which make communication possible, schizophrenics may combine words in idiosyncratic ways, or use associations that are out of context. This tendency may generate a minor language disturbance; or, in extreme cases, a word salad in which the combination of words is unintelligible to the listener and so makes communication impossible.”

Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Lesbianism

Here is a reading on lesbianism and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. This has tended to be a high-interest item in my classroom, so I’ve tagged it as such; it is also material written to address personal identity, so I’ve tagged it as social-emotional learning as well.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.