What if the kids forget to close the classroom door?
She said Mr. Grunow told Nathaniel, "Don't point that at me" and started to close the classroom door when he was shot.
For all teachers' understandable complaints about overbearing principals, unresponsive bureaucracies and meddling parents (or parents who don't meddle enough), they still wield considerable power when they close the classroom door.
Many playgrounds are home to a variety of creatures and colourful seasonal blooms, and with the sun making an appearance, it's the perfect time for packing up the exercise books, closing the classroom door and indulging in a bit of outdoor learning.
"When it rains it comes in everywhere and sometimes we have to close the classroom and move the students and it does interrupt their learning and it is very, very difficult," says Ms Raffee.
"I closed the door of my classroom and talked to my kids," she said.
The commitment to systemic change is profound, according to Kimiko Fukuda, a 33-year veteran of the system who is the only one of the old assistant superintendents to remain in the new regime as an "instructional leader," charged with breaking down the old system in which teachers generally went into their classrooms, closed the doors and used whatever instructional methods they chose.
Custodians need them close to the classroom and cafeteria messes, but instead they may be tucked into a corner of a basement.
As the song wound to a close, the classroom, with its blackboards and posters, its scuffed wood floors and hulking seminar table, was lit by the setting sun.
By so engaging college students, universities are offering problems solving opportunities to learn by doing--a form of project based learning enhancing the learning experience and fostering interdisciplinary expertise, an effort to close the gap between classroom pedagogy and the real world.
