Robert Macfadden is a history teacher at Palmdale High School in Palmdale, CA. A while ago, Robert wrote in with the following story. There’s a very important moment in this story that I’d like to expand upon after Robert is through. So, I’ll be back in a minute. Here’s Robert: Four years ago I had […]
Archives for September 2021
How to Get Better at Satisficing as an Educator
Satisficing isn’t my word. It’s Nobel winner Herbert Simon’s. It means, “Doing something at the good-enough level, not the optimal level.” Few skills are as critical to the well-lived teacher’s life. Here’s why. On paper, teaching is an impossible job. So is administration. Doing education by the book in the twenty-first century is hopelessly Byzantine. […]
The Best Question for Helping You Simplify Lessons, Curricula, Policies, or Procedures
The question is pretty… well [looks up synonym for simple] basic: What would this look like if it had to be simple? If this lesson I’m planning had to be simple — as few moving parts as possible, as few things that could go wrong as possible, as few needless confusion points as possible — […]
A Few Helpful Ideas for Resting as an Educator
The late USC philosopher Dallas Willard used to describe the body like a battery pack for the soul. For about a year, that definition didn’t make much sense to me. But lately, it has started to click and has been helping me think better about rest in my life as a husband, father, teacher, and […]
The Case for Lumpiness
All right: finite creatures, only 24 hours in a day, only 4,000 weeks or so in a life. Got it. We’ve looked at DECIDE, CONSTRAIN, OBSESS — now today, a riff on the discipline of ELIMINATION. (You may already be noticing that the disciplines overlap one another. Quite right. There’s really not a ton to […]