Recently, I wrote about how our inner worlds are customizable and that their makeup depends on the ways we use our time. Sometimes our time gets used in the ways we intend; but often, our time is hijacked by habits or interruptions. These interruptions can be good! But they can also be soul-sucking, especially when […]
Three Questions to Ask After Every Conversation, According to Author Kate Murphy
If you’d like to improve your relationships — at school, at home, in your neighborhood — and would like to mature emotionally and socially, listening is a non-negotiable discipline. It doesn’t get much glory — the million-view TED talks aren’t videos of people listening; the folks who get interviewed on the morning news aren’t being […]
Flexibility v. Consistency: The Paradox We’ve Got to Wrestle With
Flexibility makes room for individual differences: in needs, in motivations, in life circumstances, in backgrounds. Consistency makes sure we provide a guaranteed degree of quality, based on the best we know right now from research in teaching and learning. When you give teachers or students too much flexibility, you end up with a broad spectrum […]
Lots of Nails
For the first three years of my career, I worked eighty hours per week. I didn’t know a bit of the research or much of the craft knowledge. Rich and productive relationships with students took hours of time. I won engagement and motivation through brute effort — lots of bells, whistles, and speeches. It’s not […]
A Humane Email Norm that More Districts Should Consider
When I send out my email newsletter, sometimes I get an autoresponder like this: Thank you for your email. Staff email hours are 7:45 am – 4:00 pm Monday – Friday. It is common practice to expect a three-business day window between receipt of an email and a response. This is brilliant. I know when […]