The Seven Pillars of the Classroom

Lessons should be interesting and meaningful.  Avoid filler activities or busywork.  Interesting and meaningful lessons are more likely to meet educational standards, encourage lifelong learning, and tend to eliminate most discipline problems.

Collaborative work should be an integral part of classroom instruction.  Most human efforts take place in groups settings, for example, families, firms, community organizations, and government.  The classroom should better prepare students for this reality.

Higher levels of cognition should be the goal of every unit.  Knowledge and understanding become significant when they are applied in higher levels of thought. 

Students should engage in problem solving.  They should not be spoon-fed answers. Repeating information is not thinking.  

Study skills should be integrated with content area curriculum.  Even the best of my advanced placement students need help with study skills. 

History is reading and writing. Any history class without them in good measure is a fraud.

History and social studies should cover the breadth of human endeavor.  Art, music, literature, and technology should be addressed as well as politics and economics.