The staff at McGlone Elementary School has a mantra: Happy kids learn more.
It’s why the extended-day school in far northeast Denver offers nearly two hours of specials like art and music per day; why the cheerful and affectionate principal keeps a few “golden tickets” clipped to her lanyard to give out as rewards; and why the classrooms aren’t the hushed, sit-up-straight, no-excuses type you might find elsewhere.
On a recent afternoon, two fifth-grade boys in matching navy polo shirts and spiky hairdos huddled next to each other in teacher Matt Johnson’s math class. Sharing a single notebook page, they worked to solve one divided by three, their skinny elbows pressed together in the unselfconscious way of elementary-school students.
“It should be three halves!” one exclaimed.
“Why?” the other asked.
“Oh, wait!” the first boy cried out. “Thirds!”
[For more of this story, written by Melanie Asmar, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...nd-in-denver/460086/]
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