Dave Stuart Jr.

Long ago, I wrote that one of the “Jedi mind tricks” for avoiding burnout is this: you are not your job. Or rather, the mind trick lies in training yourself to habitually remember that your job performance is not indicative of your value as an individual. It helps to think here of two circles: one […]

In the first days of June 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower faced befuddling complexity as the final decision for the coming D-Day invasion loomed before him. The question was easy to ask — On what date shall the invasion begin? — but soul-crushingly difficult to answer. He needed a full moon in order for his nighttime […]

Great teachers did more than obsess on the efficiency of their classroom — their questions were artful; their assignments, demanding — but there was a clear tendency among positive outliers to see the power of the humdrum, the everyday. Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better, by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and […]

The workshop was being led by Dr. Chris Hulleman, the much-admired researcher behind the “Build Connections” intervention that I share in the second chapter of These 6 Things. He was leading a session at Character Lab’s annual Educator Summit in Philadelphia, and I couldn’t believe that I was actually in the same room as this […]

Picture all the things you’d like to accomplish this school year as a bucket. In that bucket is your effectiveness, your sanity, your impact on long-term flourishing, your ability to facilitate a learning experience. It’s a good, good bucket. And then that one student misbehaves again. Or that after-lunch class starts running off the rails. […]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald If your goal is to optimize your career performance without sacrificing your life in the process — in other words, to run your career […]

The next time you’re tempted to say yes to sponsoring a club, pursuing a degree, joining a committee, or reading a book, ask yourself: If I couldn’t tell a soul about this, would I still do it? This Ego Detector is such a useful thinking tool because people like you and me are after usefulness […]

Kym was convinced that she had a disorder: she was unable to speak in class, and there was no way to solve it. This is what I learned on the first day of school when Kym filled out an index card telling me a bit about herself and who she wanted to be. I can […]

We’ve all got the same hours in our days, but the way we experience those hours is affected greatly by our energy levels. In this article, I’d like to share nine things I’ve learned this summer about keeping my energy optimized for work, for love, and for play. 1. Chip away at sleep debt rather […]

As I shared in my newsletter, last month my wife and I traveled to Queensland, Australia for my first international professional development engagement. This was all thanks to the generous work of the staff of Kingston Learning College, particularly Ms. Kelley Cowley, who ginned up the idea, and Ms. Leanne Theodos, who believed in Kelley’s […]

Last time, I discussed how critical thinking is not the “holy grail” transferrable skill that we tend to think it is. Rather, it is a function of knowledge, something most deeply practicable in domains we know enough about. This isn’t a new idea in my writing, as I discuss it in the knowledge-building chapter of […]

“Clearly, the only appropriate response to North Korean aggression is nuclear destruction.” I rubbed my temples as the fifth student suggested nuclear holocaust as the best response to the latest North Korean action. This was several years ago in my ninth grade world history classroom. We were holding an impromptu pop-up debate on the week’s […]

Nic was convinced that no matter how hard he tried, he would never do better in school. Unsurprisingly, this meant that Nic did not want to try at all. His conviction wasn’t built on laziness or bad intentions. Nic, like all of the students I’ve ever taught, didn’t want to be unsuccessful, and in other […]

Here’s a useful exercise. Think of an hour in your day where you get to do something discretionary. Maybe it’s watching a great TV show, reading a book, conversing with a loved one, getting ahead on tomorrow’s work, or working through your email inbox to get it down to zero. If you do this thing […]

Sometimes someone will say to me, “Dave, how do you do it all? Teaching, writing, speaking, being a husband, being a dad… how do you find the time?” The answer is always the same: I find the time because I don’t do anywhere close to it all. Let me give a few examples: I can’t […]

One school of thought in time management is that if you get the right system in place, and if you follow it well enough, then you’ll be able to do all of the things that you’re supposed to do. You can get it all done. This is not a school of thought that I subscribe […]