Dave Stuart Jr.

Let's make teaching better.

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Let’s Make Teaching Better.

Dave Stuart Jr. is a husband, father, and high school teacher who writes about education. He reads extensively across the disciplines so that he can create uniquely satisfying professional development experiences for his colleagues around the world. His mission is to encourage and equip educators on the journey to long-term flourishing and professional excellence.

Professional development. (The good kind.)

If we’re going to make teaching better, we’ve got to improve professional development. I’m not the guru, but I have spent thousands of hours practicing and researching the art and science of educator-centered, high-impact PD. My hope with all of these is that they help.

And oh yeah: I’m still a teacher. I’ve never left the classroom. With 120 students on my roster each year, it’s impossible for me to detach theory from practice.

Online PD

My schedule-friendly, all-online professional development courses are designed with busy educators in mind. Starting in Summer 2019, expect versions of my online courses that you can use in whole-school staff meetings.

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In-Person PD

I speak and lead education workshops for a limited number of schools and organizations around the world each year.

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Books + Blog

My best-selling book, These 6 Things, has been read and cherished by secondary teachers around the world. My blog is read by over 35,000 educators each month.

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The Latest from the Blog

The Five Key Fears?

“As a specialist in learning disabilities, I have found that the most dangerous disability is not any formally diagnosable condition like dyslexia or ADD. It is fear.” — “Overloaded Circuits,” by Edward M. Hallowell in Harvard Business Review’s Managing Yourself The absence of the five key beliefs might be the five key fears. If student […]

The Pedestal Isn’t Real

The thing with living inside your life while also writing a blog is that you can hardly tell what your life looks like to someone who is just reading the blog. The people I teach with know a lot of my issues. They know that my desk is often a mess, that there are stacks […]

You’re in the Montage

Everyone loves a good montage. Rocky runs through the streets of Philly.* The Mighty Ducks start working together as a team. Iron Man builds some stuff. Luke trains with Yoda. The climbers make their ascent. The montage sequence is cool. It’s this string of images where people work hard, solve problems, and persist. They’re sweating, […]

Complicated Isn’t Good

“A complex system, contrary to what people believe, does not require complicated systems and regulations and intricate policies. The simpler, the better. Complications lead to multiplicative chains of unanticipated effects.” Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, p. 11 One of my most helpful weaknesses is that I have a simple mind. I’m […]

PowerSchool Grade Notifications Might Not be Good for Kids

I recently had my students spend the first ten minutes of class playing a review game on Quizlet. While they were doing this, I used the time to input grades from a writing assessment I had just finished marking that morning. The goal was to go over my feedback on their work during the next […]

A Time for Theories

The other night my wife and I came home from a date, and our babysitter was up working on an assignment for school. She’s an undergrad studying to be a teacher. Next year, she starts her student teaching. As she chatted with my wife about how the night had gone, I got distracted by the […]

A Time to Learn

The other night when I came home from work, my children were playing on their bicycles in our driveway. My two youngest daughters, Laura and Marlena, ran up to me as soon as I pulled up. “DadDadDadDadDad! Can you take our training wheels off?” They wanted to learn how to ride their bike on two […]

The Digital Declutter Experiment: Spring Cleaning for Your Brain

At this point in the school year, the purpose and practice of great teaching can get foggy. The stress and challenges and changes of the year accumulate, and our minds and hearts grow dim. One thing we do is remind ourselves: it’s not about winning a prize or success as a savior, but instead it’s […]