In the post-pandemic world of education, technology has remained a player on the educational team. Sometimes, as an add-on. Sometimes, as a reminder of those dark days of remote learning that we’d all like to forget about (how many of you currently have a stack of Chromebooks sitting idly on a shelf in your classroom? I thought so…). In some cases, however, teachers learned how useful devices and tech tools can be in the classroom. Rather than adding technology to an existing curriculum, how powerful would these tools be if curricula were designed deliberately around authentic and meaningful u ..read more

Welcome to All Kids Can Learn, a blog about all things educational. Whether you are a public school teacher, private school educator, administrator, or homeschooler, or whether your school is secular or spiritual in focus, I hope that you learn something that you can use My Educational Background Kim M. Bennett, Principal, Blogger, Special Educator (c) 2022. My name is Kim Bennett. I have been an educator since 1987 when I began my formal educational career as a teaching associate in graduate school. I co-created several laboratory courses for non-agriculture majors, including four plant ident ..read more

This Week’s Posts I hope you have been following along with my back-to-school endeavors to maintain balance so I can do right for myself, my family and my students. If you’re just joining us, fear not! Here’s what we did last week… Launching a Workshop Model in High School For the past two weeks, I’ve worked on my new workshop schedule, trying it out with the kids after dabbling during summer school. I really think it will be a good way to keep kids engaged, no matter where they are. They like independence, with just enough support – and not too much talking! We’re going to a reduced day (5.5 ..read more

Gratitude, Growth and Gardening This week, I headed outside into the garden, both at home and at school with my students. The garden was a source of peace and connection with the world for me, and some much needed break from screens and keyboards for my students. At this writing, my fall radishes, lettuce and beans are already up, and the raised bed at school is clean and awaiting planting. The compost bins at school are set up and ready to go for the fall, and the kids are using their new Google Docs skills to research and share ideas for planting their fall garden. Stay tuned! On a personal ..read more

A Grateful Perspective I once had an acquaintance who would say, “I’m grateful that I have an electric bill, because that means I have lights. I’m grateful to pay my rent, because that means I have a warm, dry place to sleep at night. I’m grateful for my bunions because it means I have feet. Some people don’t have any of those things.” Gratitude does not mean ignoring the bad in life or pretending that your life is perfect. It means accepting it – no, being thankful for it – including the parts that are sad, unpleasant or disappointing, When you begin to approach each day on a positive note, a ..read more

The Importance of Outdoor Time Earlier this week, we focused on some of the benefits of having a fall garden at your school or in your yard (for those of you who are homeschoolers or remote learning families). We also reviewed the social emotional skills that children practice when they are active participants in gardening. Whether you are tending a planter with a few annuals, cleaning trash from school plantings, or creating an organic garden that feeds the students, just 15 minutes a day outside has been proven to enhance the well-being of children and adults of all ages. Need more informati ..read more

The Need for Social Emotional Learning TODAY Many people bemoan all the changes that have occurred since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019. It’s been especially hard for teachers, who have suddenly become essential, not just to our students, but to society, offering wrap-around support to families, providing a safe place for kids to go while parents try to navigate no jobs / different jobs / changed hours / changed childcare / working from home. Schools feel pressure to open because kids need stability, parents need to work and society needs to find SOME sense of normalcy. We all crave a sense ..read more

Fresh Air, Sunshine and Soil If you’re like me, you get out of school in June, throw yourself into your garden after a long winter and longer school year, retreat inside when it’s too hot to fool around outside. Then – BOOM! – it’s September and we’re back at school. This year, I want to get in that garden, even if it’s September. Luckily, there are many things you can grow now that, unlike in the summer, the students will be around to eat. Here are some of the fall veggies that you can stick in the ground with your students, getting them outside in the sunshine (sunshine DOES kill germs!), an ..read more

Teacher-Friends: We Live in a Strange, Scary Time Teacher-friends, I wanted to check in on you. How are you? Are you well? If you are struggling, I hear you. Between the end of summer school and the beginning of the school year, my whole family came down with something horrible. It started with a bad headache and sore throat. Then moved on to a fever. My 16-year-old had a fever for 11 days straight. With the fever came body aches, a runny nose, diarrhea, stomachaches, brain fog and extraordinary fatigue – the kind that had us sleeping for days and wondering if we were ever going to feel well ..read more

A New Normal I’m having flashbacks of teaching my self-contained high school last spring. Kids on Zoom, coming to school anywhere between 7:45 am and 6:00 pm. Kids leaving to go to the store, go to the bathroom, go on the trampoline, go to sleep. Sometimes, they didn’t “leave us” to do those things (another flashback to reminding a student that he was taking the whole class with him to the bathroom – yikes). I had great lessons prepared, and had worked out the technology kinks ahead of time. But I was exhausted by the sheer MOVEMENT of students into and out of this little window of space in fr ..read more