Dave Stuart Jr.

Dear colleague, On any given week, teaching can be a tough gig. But during certain segments of the year, the toughness is especially concentrated. The formerly anonymous teacher blogger Kelly Treleaven had a term for one of these concentrated periods of school year difficulty: the Dark Evil Vortex of Late September-October-November (DEVOLSON). This is what […]

Dear colleague, About a month ago, I invited teachers to spend a month experimenting with tracking attempted MGCs. The goal was to keep track of what we did and see what we noticed. Here’s what I learned from this work during September of 2024-2025. What I Did My Favorite Glimpses of Impact One day in […]

Dear colleague, My goodness — ya’ll have curiosities that run the gamut. Whether it’s restorative justice, reducing achievement gaps, competency/mastery instruction, or deep education versus cheap schooling…us professionals are pondering a lot of things. So here’s why I asked that question in my previous post. About nine months ago, I got curious about whether my […]

Dear colleague, I just finished recording an interview that I’m excited to share with you later this week. It’s a long-form conversation with a dear friend, and its core themes are curiosity, experimentation, and progress. It got me thinking. At a time of the school year when it can start to be hard to remember […]

Dear colleague, One of our amazing colleagues wrote a comment on my YouTube channel recently that perfectly describes how to approach your first Pop-Up Debates of the school year. (For more on Pop-Up Debates, see the index of your copy of These 6 Things or this guide.) Here’s what Connie Fletcher said: One of my […]

Dear colleague, In my general-level World History courses this year, I’ve started running an “Article of the Day” experiment. Students grab the printed article as they come into class and then: Each of those bullets are skills I’ve been ​Woodenizing​ through modeling on the doc cam — again and again and again. I do, you […]

Dear colleague, During this past summer, I spent much of the time enjoying time away from the teaching and writing grind. But sprinkled throughout that time, I also travelled to schools in Ohio, Michigan, California, Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Texas. In the midst of that PD work, I realized something about what a good professional […]

Dear colleague, Earlier this week, I invited you to join me in a month of experimenting and playing with Strategy #1 in The Will to Learn: Tracking Attempted Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs). And today I’m going to write to you about something you’ll find as you work on this: MGCs can be exhausting. An […]

Dear colleague, This school year, I’d like to invite you into a series of month-long explorations. Whenever I do this, let’s remember a few things: Super simple. Super good. Slow yet steady growth in a reliable direction. That’s what we’re after. For this month’s invitation, check out the video below. (Not seeing a video? Click […]

Dear colleague, This is the first year I’ve had a “the bell is our boss” poster hanging by my classroom clock, and I should not be as surprised as I am by how many students have commented on it. When I made that poster, the goal was to reinforce the idea that when the bell […]

Here’s a question I’m thinking about during the first weeks of school: Is motivation the CAUSE of doing the work of learning or the EFFECT? As it turns out, it’s both. Motivation gets us to try the work of learning. When I think of my students this year who are most resistant to doing the […]

Dear colleague, At the time of this writing, I am three days into my eighteenth year of teaching. Today, I’m sharing five reflections on the first week of school. Hopefully one of them creates encouragement or greater clarity for you. In Sum As these weary bones pack up for a weekend of as much rest […]