Curriculum and Academics

A Parent's Guide To Understanding High School Teaching Methods

You and I began teaching our children probably even before they were born. I remember well how my late wife played a Mozart symphony or some Gilbert and Sullivan while she was pregnant. She also frequently read aloud. Teaching by example truly is one of the most effective teaching methods.

Teaching by example still has its place in teaching high school examples, but things are a bit more complicated, or should I say, enriched, in 2025.

• As parents of high school students, we often find ourselves puzzled by the teaching methods our teens tell us about.
• Gone are the days when education meant simply lecturing and memorizing facts. That may be true, but I can still conjugate the Latin verbs I learned in 8th Grade. But I digress.

Against that backdrop, let's take a look at how teachers function in today's high schools. I've included quotes from several authoritative sources so you can drill down and find out more about the methods.

Canva generated this picture of high school students.

Let's ask Perplexity to answer our questions.

RK: How do high school teachers teach these days?

Perplexity: Today's high school teachers employ a wide variety of approaches designed to engage students and prepare them for a complex world.

• Understanding these methods isn't just interesting. It's essential for supporting our teens throughout these

Social Emotional Learning: Education's Hidden Symphony

As a classical musician and writer, I deeply understand how emotions and social connections shape our learning experiences. Let me share my perspective on Social Emotional Learning, a framework that resonates strongly with my artistic background. To help you understand SEL, I have included quotes from authoritative sources together with links, so that you explore the subject more fully. Here's why Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is as essential to your child's development as learning their ABCs or multiplication tables.

The Daily Impact

Your child might struggle with situations like:

• Getting frustrated when homework becomes challenging
• Having difficulty making friends at school
• Feeling anxious about speaking up in class
• Managing conflicts with siblings

SEL helps children navigate these everyday challenges by teaching them to understand and manage their emotions just as they learn to read or solve math problems. Since a report indicates that too much screen time on smartphones increases children's aggressiveness, SEL is a tool that can mitigate those unhelpful emotions.

The research also suggests that teachers with better social emotional learning (SEL) skills are more likely to have good relationships with students, and those students in turn are more engaged in learning. Source: American Psychological Association

Real Benefits for Your Child

Think of SEL as giving your child an emotional toolkit. Children who participate in SEL programs show remarkable improvements:

• Higher academic scores and test results
• Better classroom behavior and focus
• Stronger friendships and

Inside DoDEA Schools: Background

As someone who has taught various subjects and served as a deputy director in a private school, I can only imagine what it must be like to run a global educational system like the Department of Defence Schools (DoDEA). Let's look at the teacher qualifications, how much the tuition and costs are, and how the schools are accredited.

The Department of Defense Schools trace their roots to the aftermath of World War II.

• In 1946, the Department of the Army established the first schools for dependents of service people in occupied Germany, Austria, and Japan.
• These schools served children of American military personnel stationed abroad. Initially, the Army, Navy, and Air Force operated their schools separately.

Then, in 1964, the Secretary of Defense combined these into a single system.

• The Defense Dependents Education Act of 1978 formally established the Defense Dependents' Education System, authorizing the Secretary of Defense to operate a free public education system for eligible overseas dependents.
• This act provided Congressional authorization for the schools. Over time, the system has evolved.
• In 1992 it became known as the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), incorporating overseas and domestic schools.
• Today, DoDEA operates as a field activity of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, serving military families worldwide.

This video offers a look at the DoDEA schools in Europe.

The Tech Divide

Simply put, the tech divide I am referring to deals with schools that have robust technology and those that don't.

• K-12 education in the second decade of the 21st century needs five well-developed components to be successful.
• These components are not stand-alone items.
• They are linked and complement each other.
• The entire package is essential to overcome the tech divide in many parts of America.

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering why I am stating the obvious. After all, your private school has the best of everything. That's why you are sending your kids there. What I want you to do is to share that insistence on having the best possible educational outcomes for your children.

• Share it with a teacher you know.
• Introduce the local district IT director to your IT director.
• Create partnerships.
• Use your connections to overcome the technology divide.

Canva generated this picture of a private school 7th-grade classroom.

Enhanced Connectivity

Enhanced Connectivity in all our schools, private and public, is not just a luxury but a necessity.

• We expect the private school to which we are sending our children to have reliable, high-speed internet access.
• We know that facilitates seamless learning experiences.
• This connectivity is a crucial step that involves more than simply setting up a couple of routers around the school buildings and campus.
• Connectivity is also about ensuring

AI For Teachers

I'm a retired teacher. These days, I write about K-12 education and community college. However, I know how time-consuming it is to write lesson plans and rubrics and ensure compliance with the curriculum. Grading English compositions, communicating with parents, and creating quizzes take infinite time and patience. And those are just a few things we teachers are expected to do.

That's why I want to introduce you to my assistant. It's an AI app called Perplexity. Now, there are dozens of AI apps you can use. Chat-GPT is probably the most popular. Both Google and Microsoft have their versions of AI built into their search engines, as does Grammarly. It doesn't matter which AI app you choose. What's important is to learn how to tell Perplexity or Chat-GPT what you want it to do. That's called prompt engineering. So, let's start with that first. Then, I'll show you some websites with AI tools explicitly written for teachers and administrators.

Introduction to Prompt Engineering

How do you write an effective prompt?

As teachers, you and I have learned how to give clear instructions to our students. We choose our words carefully to achieve a pre-determined result. In other words, we narrow the field and limit the choices. That's precisely how prompts work—that's the essence of prompt engineering.

The art and skill of writing effective prompts is called prompt engineering. It's a burgeoning field within the