Dave Stuart Jr.

There are lots of differences between South Korea and the United States, but the most important one today is probably this: the South Koreans have tested the majority of their (much smaller) population for coronavirus, and this knowledge enables them to enact precise public health measures aimed at containment. Meanwhile, the United States has tested […]

It’s possible that right now isn’t the best time to obsess about providing a continuous stream of curricular objectives for our students. That time will come, but it’s probably not now. We’re all familiar with A. H. Maslow’s theoretical hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, love, self-esteem, self-actualization, and, in his later writings, self-transcendence [1]. While […]

In the early 1940s, a thoughtful man in his thirties was experiencing the torment of a Nazi concentration camp. A particular moment in his trial keeps coming to my mind of late. He was marching to a work site that was far away from his camp. Physically, he recalls, the pain was ceaseless. “Almost in […]

All school year, I’ve been thinking about leadership. I see and hear about both excellent and poor examples of leadership in schools and organizations around the country. Leadership is a useful topic for teachers to think on, as we are, after all, the leaders of our classrooms. And when comparing like schools, leadership is virtually […]

By the time we become teachers, we’ve had thousands of hours to contemplate and observe all kinds of learning environments. We’ve experienced motivating and demotivating circumstances. We’ve witnessed inspired and uninspired lessons. And we’ve struggled through incoherent curricula and flourished in clear and cumulative ones. And then as soon as we arrive at that moment […]

…is pain. This is important. When we see motivated students, what we’re seeing are human beings benefitting from the five key beliefs. On the flipside, when we see unmotivated or apathetic students, we’re seeing the dark sides of these five key beliefs. Think of them as the five key fears. These fears are: Anti-Credibility: I […]

About eight years ago, I looked ahead to the coming summer and I realized that I would need a summer job if we were to support our growing family. At the time, our oldest was two, and our second child was on her way. I looked into lawn mowing and insurance selling. And then I […]

Boring. Dumb. Pointless. Irrelevant. Annoying. Stupid. When students say words like these, they’re telling us this: I don’t value this kind of work. Value is one of five key beliefs beneath student motivation. Every individual arrives at value differently — but there are some interesting patterns in the research. For example, when a young person […]

A key skill for the teacher is explaining things clearly. Here are a few tips for helping with that. 1) “Superfluous information creates confusion, muddies waters, and digs holes.” There is a man in my community whose career involved working with NASA on the Apollo program. We call him “Alabama” Bob Clingan. He’s a joy […]

Many of my students, when pressed, struggle to say just what learning is. They can tell you about completing tasks, checking grades, keeping track of emergency passes, and so on. In other words, they are aware of schoolish behaviors. But they can’t tell you exactly what’s happening when they learn or how one goes about […]

Perhaps the day will come when human beings attach their brains to the Internet and become one with the digitized knowledge-base. Billionaires are investing in this kind of research, and the science is fascinating, bizarre, and frightening. But here’s my take: until that time, the human being with a knowledge base in their brain will […]

Last time, I wrote about how our relationships with students are sure to break down. This is why I’ve added “Repair” to the CCP of teacher credibility that I wrote about in These 6 Things, Chapter 2: Care, Competence, and Passion. If you cannot identify and repair faltering student-teacher relationships, you’re bound to be befuddled […]

The reason I got to thinking about entropy recently is because I started seeing a pattern: relationships with students often fall apart. I’ve written a lot about how relationships aren’t the point of school — it’s actually not “all about relationships” — but they sure are important. Perhaps most critically, caring relationships enhance my credibility; […]

“Only entropy comes easy.” Russian playwright Anton Checkhov, as cited in Weinburg and McCann’s Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models The second law of thermodynamics essentially holds that, without new investments of energy, things fall apart — hot things become cold, neat things become messy, clean things become dirty. As physics professor Denis […]

The fastest way to master anything is simple: good teaching and good practice. Good teaching makes clear what needs to be learned, discerns and pursues the most promising means for students to learn it (regardless of whether or not the means align with whatever teaching dogma is presently in vogue), and takes pains to create […]

Part of the naturalization process in the United States involves memorizing 100 facts about the country. These facts cover its government, its history, its geography, and its symbols. (Here’s a PDF of the full list.) They are formatted in a Q&A style. (Example below.) On test day, would-be citizens are asked 10 random questions from […]