A couple years ago, I wrote an article about a former student of mine, whom we’ll call Scarlett for the sake of anonymity. You can click on that link to read the full story — it’s quite brief — but the gist is this: I had assumed that Scarlett’s time in my class did her […]
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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. Whole staff or district applications are available — email support@davestuartjr.com with your needs.
In-Person PD
I speak and lead education workshops for a limited number of schools and organizations around the world each year.
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 Zoom Out Method
The other day I was speaking with my sister-in-law Amber, and she gave me a great method for practicing perspective. When you find yourself stressed, do the zoom out. If you’re in a situation where you can close your eyes to do this exercise, great. If you’re not (e.g., driving a vehicle or teaching a […]
Woodenize All of It
One of the best things you can do to help students put forth greater and more effective Effort is to teach them exactly what effective Effort looks like for the task at hand. And when you start to move in this direction, go all the way — leave nothing to chance. John Wooden, the peerless […]
What If We Had Time?
A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany: what if, instead of rushing bedtime with my kids, I pretended that I had enough time to give them the love they each desired? It’s a silly question, really. Many of you are likely the kind of superstar parents that would never need to ask this. But […]
Faculty and Staff Door Signs: A Simple Schoolwide Credibility Signal
A month or so ago, I visited a school in Middletown, DE: Alfred G Waters Middle School, known to my heart as Shark Nation. My first time there was half a decade ago for a These 6 Things workshop, and since then we’ve done a fair bit of remote work on student motivation. As I […]
Satisficing ≠ Quiet Quitting
The other day I fiddled up the end of a talk on the Will to Teach by making it seem like satisficing is something that you do for every single task on your plate as a teacher. Astute listeners unfamiliar with my work were left thinking, “Huh — it sounds like he’s telling me to […]
Competence ≠ Perfection
Something a lot of us teachers need reminding of is that becoming Credible in the eyes of a student has little to do with becoming a perfect teacher or doing everything at the level of total excellence. Instead, our students’ hearts are much more gracious than this; they long not for our perfection but for […]
The Gift of Many Teachers
One thing I like to repeat often to my students is that they have many more teachers for my class than just me. First and last, they have themselves. No one else in the world is more able to see the things they’re thinking, the things they’re wondering, the things they’re confident or unsure about. […]
This Weekend, Maybe Work on a Work Schedule
Earlier this school year, I was fortunate to spend a day in Arkansas working with early career teachers. Our focus was on establishing a work schedule prior to the start of the school year. It strikes me this morning that fall is a good time for all of us to consider revisiting this important discipline. […]
Longevity as Its Own Form of Greatness
In a recent edition of his newsletter, author James Clear wrote the following: “Over long time frames, simply staying in the game is impressive. – Health and fitness: Can you stay injury free and not miss workouts? – Wealth and finance: Can you avoid debt and continue to save? – Business: Can you maintain cash […]
Being a Credible Teacher is Like Having a Good Wine Label
So I’m no sommelier — beer and bourbon are more my game when I choose to partake — but I was recently enthralled by a story about wine in Patrick Radden Keefe’s Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks. (Uplifting title, right?) The story that caught my eye was, on its face, quite […]
It’s “Finished”
I just put the final touches on the final draft of the final manuscript of a book I’ve been working on for what seems like eighty years. It’s the one I’ve mentioned a time or two of late — the one on student motivation. Here’s the title, as best we can figure at this stage […]
Two Principles for Normalizing Struggle in a Given Classroom
I was recently with the secondary educators of Cache County, Utah,* on what can only be described as a fine Friday of professional development. These folks were just lovely, especially in light of the fact that I was a guy holding them back from their weekend. In one of the sessions, we were looking at […]
High Expectations: An Ingredient, Not a Meal
Sometimes, we secondary educators can get into a funk of believing that we need not teach our students how to best work at learning in our classrooms. Some of us think this kind of work just isn’t something we should have to do; others think that to teach these things would be boring or insulting […]
Common Misperceptions Regarding Moments of Genuine Connection
Dear colleague, Once folks start trying to implement tracking attempted moments of genuine connection (MGCs), there are a few misperceptions that start to crop up. I’d like to publish those today, in hopes that we can nip confusion in the bud before it has a chance to cause us any undue stress or tension. Misperception […]
Such a Doggone Good Feeling
One of my favorite Fred Rogers repetitions — and boy, let me tell ya, do I have a lot — is, “It’s such a good feeling.” What Rogers does with lines like that is masterful, even for secondary educators like me, for at least two reasons I’d like you to think about today. First, he […]