Author: Kelsey Myers

Imagine a preschool classroom in a remote part of Kenya. There is only one room, a low window lets in morning light, and a teacher is in charge of twenty-three kids, ages three to five, the majority of whom didn’t eat breakfast. The instructor has received some training. Not sufficient. The materials on the shelf are not in the local language and were donated. She is doing what she needs, which is more than the system has provided, and what she can do, which is significant. In more than 70 countries where OMEP works, as well as in several American…

A child is learning in a national language other than her grandmother’s while seated at a desk in a rural Indonesian school. The curriculum does not include her grandmother’s language, which is one of the hundreds of regional tongues that are still spoken throughout the archipelago. It might never show up in her formal education. The story is not exclusive to Indonesia. Every continent is experiencing it in communities where the rate of standardization has surpassed any significant attempts to maintain the unique characteristics of a given location, population, or custom. The Liechtenstein-based global education network EdHeroes is attempting to…

Imagine a kindergarten in a Sudanese refugee camp with plastic chairs, a tiny chalkboard, and a kid-friendly area funded by UNICEF where a four-year-old named Walaa is learning to draw. It is modest by all material standards. However, no amount of primary school remediation can completely replace what is taking place in that room—the development of language, routine, and the fundamental cognitive scaffolding that later learning depends on. The World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP, has been arguing this point for many years. At last, there may be a chance to make it matter at the level of…

A teenage girl named Sirenie entered a football field in Burundi during a period when her community thought that girls should not participate in sports. She received criticism. She felt disheartened. Nevertheless, she continued to play. Other girls gradually followed. Burundi is not a country that is often featured in Western news cycles, so it’s a minor story in the geography of global crises, but it’s precisely the kind of story that Right To Play has been quietly producing for 25 years, in places that most aid organizations find difficult to reach and that most headlines choose to ignore. The…

Castle Rock is located on the southern edge of the Denver metro area, far enough from the city to have its own distinct identity. It is a small-town feel encircled by a developing suburban community, with the kind of neighborhoods where real estate listings reflect school district performance. The appeal has long included the Douglas County School District. Superintendent Erin Kane reported on Monday that the 93.6 percent graduation rate from 92 schools and 61,000 students in preschool through twelfth grade was the highest among Colorado’s large school districts. The district is acting in accordance with school district policies by…

When a lockdown is announced, a certain silence descends upon a school building. Usually agitated in between periods, the hallways become motionless. Classroom doors close with a click. Suddenly, students who were half-listening or texting start paying attention to something they weren’t prepared for. That silence began at 2:14 p.m. on May 1st at Avon High School in Hendricks County, Indiana. It was brought on by an anonymous phone call that mentioned threats outside the building. By most quantitative measures, Avon High School is among Indiana’s top public high schools. It was the only public high school among the eight…

School districts in bigger, noisier cities often envy the reputation that Cherry Creek School District has built over the years. Serving more than 53,000 students in 108 square miles of the Denver metro area, with 70 schools, eight municipalities, and a faculty with more than 79 percent advanced degrees, it has been the type of district that other districts covertly compare themselves to for the majority of its existence. It still has that reputation. However, it has suffered greatly, and the events of the last few months raise issues that are not adequately addressed by a press release regarding budget…

There is a rhythm to the parking lot at Round Lake Middle School on North Lotus Drive. Parents leave. Buses arrive. By the time the building opens at 7:15, children with backpacks have left through the front doors, and the roughly 788 students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades settle into the routine commotion of a school day. That’s how Wednesday, May 6 began. That was not how it remained. The Greater Round Lake Fire Protection District arrived at the school at 8:50 a.m. due to a reported overdose. An ambulance transported two students to nearby hospitals. The majority…

Something changes in a school building sometime in late May or early June. The noise level in the hallways increases. It becomes a little more difficult to retain the lessons. In the third week of May, teachers begin to notice a restlessness that permeates classrooms like humidity and doesn’t go away until the last bell rings and the doors open for the last time until August. The feeling is familiar to all students in North America. Simply put, the question is: when will that day come? It depends, which is a frustrating response. Depending on the city, state, or province…

A room with a narrow cot lined with paper, a cabinet of basic supplies, a sink, and a chair next to a desk piled high with paperwork and folders can be found in almost every American school. The fluorescent light is humming. No one has noticed the little handwashing poster that has been on the wall for so long. And a school nurse is sitting at that desk, or more likely standing in the doorway and observing a child enter with a stomachache that could be anxiety or something else entirely. National School Nurse Day is on Wednesday, May 6,…