"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles

Immigrant Student Enrollment Is Falling. How Should Schools Respond? is the headline of one of my recent Education Week columns.

Enrollment patterns may change, but schools still need to take care of their English learners.

Here’s an excerpt:

     

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Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown: These are my 4 lessons for any leader is an interesting article from The NY Times.

Here are his four rules, which he explains more in depth in the article itself:

When you’re down, pick them up

It’s OK to have fun

Messaging matters

Some things are bigger than results

I’m adding this info to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES ON LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP – SHARE YOUR OWN.

     

It continues to be time for mid-year “Best” lists.

Now it’s time for the Best Videos For Educators.

You can see all my previous “Best” lists related to videos and movies (and there are a lot since I’ve doing this since 2007) here. Note that they’re also continually revised and updated.

Here are my picks from the first half of 2026:

Trust me, you’ll want to take three minutes and see this segment from the PBS NewsHour:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Videos Documenting The History Of The English Language:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Learning About Our World’s Population Of 7 Billion:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Sites Where Students Can Learn About Inventions:

 

I’m adding this video to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR HELPING STUDENTS – & US – DEVELOP GOOD HABITS:

 

This is great!

 

TIME Magazine is doing a YouTube series offering short clips portraying important days during the American Revolution.

Here’s their introductory video, and you can see them all here.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Helping Teach About The 250th Anniversary Of The American Revolution:

 

60 Seconds Knowledge seems like it could be a pretty useful YouTube channel for educators.

They create short videos providing the answers to intriguing questions.

I could see teachers showing them followed by a short writing prompt.

For example, students could be shown this video and asked to write about times in their own lives and in other points in history where people won the battle but lost the war, and reflect on why that might have happened:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Ideas To Help Students Become Better Listeners — Contribute More:

 

When I teach World History to ELLs, we study the Epic of Gilgamesh, and students summarize the different portions of the story and create illustrated books.

You can see resources I use for that activity here.

TED-Ed has created a video about the epic in Spanish, which will come in quite handy for that lesson:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Using “Reactance” With Students To Help Them Learn About How Corporations Try To Manipulate Them:

 

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For International Mother Language Day:

 

I’ve added this video to The “Best” Lesson Ideas For Teaching About The Protests & Killings In Minneapolis:

 

You’ll want to watch this new New York Times video, which is introduced by this line:

The students of Valley View Elementary, including the schoolmates of Liam Ramos, wrote letters to the ICE agents who have been detaining their friends and families.

You might also be interested in this older Washington Post article about my former students: ‘Dear President-elect Trump’: Immigrant students write letters asking for ‘the opportunity to demonstrate we are good people.’

 

Bruce Springsteen teamed up with the ACLU to make this great ad to support birthright citizenship.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning About The 14th Amendment.

You might be interested in previous posts about Springsteen:

Amazing Bruce Springsteen Video On The Importance Of Practice

Springsteen Releases Song About Minneapolis That’s Great (For The Classroom, Too) – Here’s Audio & Lyrics

 

I hadn’t heard of Puppet Regime until I read about it in this recent NY Times article, Who’s Pulling the Strings on the World Stage? Ask the Puppets.

They’re short, satirical videos about current events.

It seems to me that it could be fun and educational to show some of them as models and ask students to create their own about current events – or even historical ones.

I’m adding this info to The Best Resources & Ideas For Teaching About Current Events.

Here’s an example of one:

 

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I was recently reading a NY Times article headlined How do you hold a star athlete accountable? We asked those who have tried (and failed).

The first thing that struck me was that it was pretty obvious why the coaches featured in the piece had failed – probably most teachers could have taught them better strategies for providing critical feedback.

The second thing that struck me was the excerpt in the textbox at the top of this post – I had never heard of the SBIA feedback model, though much of it reflects the strategy I often used with students.

I did a little research, and learned it was developed by the Center For Creative Leadership.

You can learn more details at Use Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI)™ to Understand Intent.

Here’s how they summarize it:

1. Clarify the Situation,
2. Describe the specific Behaviors observed, and
3. Explain the Impact that behavior had on you.

Later in the article, they add a good fourth step:

4. Intent:

Inquire about the person’s original intentions. Inviting them to share where they were coming from helps you understand more about the other person’s experience of the situation and explore the gap together between intentions vs. impact, building greater trust and understanding.

Example: “What were you hoping to accomplish with that?” or “What was going on for you?”
Then actively listen to the other person as they share their perspective. Simple solutions usually follow.

There are certainly far worse feedback strategies to use, including the ones used by the coaches described in the article.

I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Learning How To Best Give Feedback To Students.

     

The United Nations has declared June 26th to be the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

You might be interested in The Best Sites Sites For Discussing The Morality of Torture.