| By: Committee for Children The Roots of My Advocacy, Part 1 In the mid 1970s, I taught kindergarten to children in a clinical treatment program. These kids had been chronically abused for most of their young lives.Read More
| By: Committee for Children Book Review: My Secret Bully by Trudy Ludwig Reading Level: Grades 1–4 The narrator of My Secret Bully, Monica, doesn’t waste any time. On the very first page, she reveals that she has a secret bully named Katie. And the next sentence sums up the crux of relational aggression, or emotional bullying: “A lot of people would be surprised to know this because they think she’s my…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Book Review: Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen and Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens to His Heart by Howard Binkow Reading level: Preschool–Grade 2 Howard B. Wigglebottom is aptly named, in more ways than one. Not only is he too wiggly to listen to friends and teachers, he is also an awesome dancer. Over the course of two picture books by Howard Binkow, readers learn how this spirited bunny learns to be a good listener and to follow his heart and be proud of who he…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Violence Prevention Activities Upper elementary and middle school violence-prevention activities (adapted from the Second Step and Steps to Respect programs) Read More
| By: Emilie Coulter Book Review: Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher Reading level: Grades 5–8 What happens in a sixth-grade classroom when kids rule? When the regular, beloved teacher is absent, and the sub doesn’t show up? The students have several choices. They could go straight to the principal’s office to report the situation. They could take the Lord of the Flies route and go wild until they are caught. As one of the…Read More
| By: Emilie Coulter Book Review: Say Something by Peggy Moss Reading level: Kindergarten–Grade 4 The narrator in Say Something is astute and empathic toward the kids in her school who are teased. She watches and wonders about them, picking up on body language that tells her they are sad. She would never make fun of someone the way her schoolmates do. Instead, she feels sorry for them, crosses to the other side of the hall, and…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Program Sustainability Activities >Elementary and middle school activities to help foster program sustainment (adapted from the Second Step and Steps to Respect programs) Read More
| By: Committee for Children Are Schools Safer Ten Years After the Columbine Shootings? April 20, 2009 SEATTLE—This week marks the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings. Have all the reports, studies, and extra security measures made our schools safer? Have we learned anything? “Yes and no,” answers Joan Cole Duffell, executive director of Committee for Children, a Seattle-based nonprofit that experienced a “huge surge” of interest after the shootings and…Read More
| By: Emilie Coulter Book Review: Viva La Paris by Esmé Raji Codell Reading level: Grades 4–6 When you’re a fifth-grade girl, it’s tricky enough to try to solve the problem of your eighth-grade brother being bullied by another fifth-grade girl. But when Paris McCray begins learning about the big-time bullying that went on during World War II, her brain and heart switch to overload, and all she can do is bury herself deeper and…Read More
| By: Committee for Children Book Review: The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell Reading level: Adult This book is a compilation of diary entries from 150 high school students in Long Beach, California, who call themselves the Freedom Writers. Their English teacher, Erin Gruwell, discovers that her at-risk students have never heard of the Holocaust. She decides to teach a curriculum of tolerance using books such as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and…Read More