Dear colleague, Once in a while, I’ll hear a student or a teacher say this when I bring up a strategy: “I tried that. It doesn’t work.” On its face, this is a frustrating thing for a teacher to hear. After all, the person seems to have come to the conclusion that there’s nothing more […]
Hofstadter’s Law
Dear colleague, Hofstadter’s Law is gallows humor: “It always takes longer than expected, even when one takes Hofstadter’s Law into account.” I’ve been teaching about two decades, and man… Hoftstadter must’ve been an educator or something. So: whether it’s grading or planning or getting through your emails, I’d better let you get back to the […]
Better, Saner Homework Tips, Pt 3: Team Up With Parents and Guardians
Dear colleague, Years ago, I started a series of articles called “Better, Saner Homework Tips.” In Part 1, I wrote on how we might make homework better and saner for ourselves. And in Part 2, I wrote about how we might make homework experiences better for our students. Today, I’d like to end this talk […]
Beating Boredom: Two Tactics, Two Thoughts
Dear colleague, Years ago, I travelled to Germany with a group of teachers to study the school system there, and one of my traveling companions was an economics teacher named Martha Sevetson Rush. Martha was one of those second-career teachers that exudes a passion for the work. After college, she had been a journalist, but […]
Expertise: The Best Professional Investment You Can Make
Dear colleague, The most resilient thing you can build for yourself as a professional educator isn’t a beautiful classroom (those can get reassigned) or an iron-clad curriculum (we’ve seen how quickly the winds of policy can reduce these to rubble) or a foolproof methodology (looking at you, AI). Nope. The most resilient thing is expertise. […]