Motivation can seem like a boring topic. At least, it did to me when I was in my undergraduate EdPsych classes. But here’s the thing: when kids aren’t motivated to do work with care, the whole endeavor of education breaks down. You can’t passively master anything, except passivity. For our kids to master art and […]
Archives for November 2018
How (and Why) to Ask Administrators for PD Funding
Every year, the US spends billions of dollars on teacher professional development. That’s a lot of money. If you stacked up $100 bills one on top of the other, a billion-dollar stack would be taller than the Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building. Unfortunately, much of this money is wasted. As Dan Weisberg of […]
Feeling Burned Out? Read This
I’ve never met a teacher who didn’t go into education hoping that they’d make a difference — that, ultimately, their work would promote the long-term flourishing of young people. There’s no other way to begin talking about burnout than by starting with the ultimate aim of teaching: the long-term flourishing of our students. From there, we find our truest, […]
To the Teacher Who is Struggling Right Now
Maybe it’s your first year. Or your fifth year, or your fifteenth. It could be that you’re trying out a new school, a new curriculum, or a new grade level. Maybe you had a choice — maybe you didn’t. Maybe there was a schedule change, and now you don’t have that last period prep anymore. […]
How to Motivate Students to Turn In Their Essays Without Using Brownies
There is nothing more depressing than spending your weekend grading 125 essays. Scratch that. There is. The only thing more depressing than spending your weekend grading 125 essays is spending your weekend grading 75 essays because the other 50 didn’t turn them in. That’s Lynsay Fabio, one of our many colleagues in the great field […]
