There’s a point in the year when teaching stops being about content and starts being about regulation.

Students are wired, tired, or checked out. Teachers are repeating directions that used to work. And everyone can feel the tension building before learning even begins.

This week, we’re looking at one simple truth backed by research and practice alike: before students can focus, they often need a reset. Not a lecture. Not a consequence. A reset.

Here’s how you’re about to become an even better teacher in the next 6 minutes.

🚀 Noteworthy News

👉️ Disruptive: Gen Alpha may never write an email—voice notes are taking over work.

👉️ Controversial: Teachers want a four-day week—and say students would benefit too.

👉️ Escalating: Denmark follows Australia in banning social media for kids.

🔉But first, a word from today’s sponsor for the teachers making financial literacy part of their New Year’s resolution: 

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And now back to making you an even better teacher 👇️ 

TECH TOOL

Reset, Then Teach

Let’s be honest. The weeks before winter break and the ones right after are… a lot. 

Attention spans shrink, wiggles multiply, and “please sit down” becomes a full-time job.

The Solution: BrainBreakHub

BrainBreakHub is a free, community-powered collection of movement breaks, games, videos, and quick activities you can launch instantly. 

No accounts for students. No prep for teachers. Just click and go. The magic isn’t just giving kids a break—it’s giving them a controlled reset so they can come back ready to learn.

What really sets it apart is the teacher community. You can upload your own brain breaks, share games that worked, and borrow ideas from classrooms around the world. 

Here at The PEN Weekly, we’re big believers in teachers helping teachers be better teachers, and this platform lives that value every day.

Is This For YOUR Classroom?

If you teach elementary or junior grades, absolutely. If you’re intentional about when and why you use brain breaks, this becomes a classroom management tool, not chaos fuel. Used randomly, it’s noise. Used strategically, it’s gold.

Strategies That Work:

1. Planned Resets: Schedule brain breaks before focus drops.

2. Student Choice Days: Let students pick from approved options.

3. Share What Works: Upload your best breaks to help others.

BrainBreakHub reminds us that learning doesn’t always start at a desk. Sometimes, it starts with moving first.

BRAINY BIT

Research Moves Too Slowly

TLDR: The PEN Weekly started almost two years ago to speed up how research reaches classrooms. A brand-new international paper confirms the problem is real: education research moves slowly, gets stuck, and rarely arrives ready-to-use—but teachers can help close the gap. 

The Study: Integrating Research Into Classrooms

This was surprisingly not a classroom experiment. Instead, five heads of learning-science research labs from the UK, France, and Chile met for a two-day workshop to examine why research struggles to influence teaching. They presented their work, shared challenges, and recorded detailed notes. 

Those slides and notes were then analyzed using an adapted research “gap analysis” framework. The goal was to systematically identify where breakdowns occur between research, policy, and classroom practice, and to compare those challenges across countries.

The Results:

Five major gaps emerged: 

• Outdated theory

• A wide research-practice divide

• Narrow research methods

• Weak replication

• Limited research on real classrooms and diverse learners 

Despite different education systems, the same problems showed up everywhere. 

Translation is slow not because teachers resist research, but because research is rarely built with classrooms in mind. 

In YOUR Classroom:

This explains why “evidence-based” ideas often feel half-baked by the time they reach us.

Here’s how this study could improve your classroom approach this week:

Strategies That Work:

1. Think principles, not programs: Focus on why a strategy works so you can adapt it to your students.

2. Share the research you find: Forwarding things like The PEN Weekly to colleagues helps good ideas move faster than waiting for official PD.

3. Demand usable research: Value summaries, tools, and classroom-ready examples over academic buzzwords.

This study doesn’t blame teachers - it validates them. And it quietly suggests something powerful: classrooms like yours are where research should start.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We would LOVE to hear from you!

Reply to this email, or send us a message on Instagram! We’re here to walk with you in these crazy times!

Part of what makes The PEN Weekly community so special is the fact that our readers are teachers from around the world! We’re not going to lie, we think that’s pretty darn cool!

We’ll see you again on Monday 🍎

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