Dear colleague, In response to my last article re: the survey tool I use for measuring student beliefs, our colleague Abbie asked whether the concepts in The Will to Learn map well onto the work administrators do with teachers. As it turns out, I believe they certainly do. (For the sake of brevity, I’ll refrain […]
An Experimental Survey Tool for Measuring the Five Key Beliefs
Dear colleague, Though I’m surely not a survey-specialist-guy, I’ve developed a survey tool for measuring the Five Key Beliefs that I wanted to share today. It has given me reliable, actionable insights both times I’ve used it (Spring and Fall of 2025), so I’d like to give it to you in case it helps. Here’s […]
Learners v. Downloaders v. Work Producers
Dear colleague, I often realize that I’m just a glorified reminder guy. My books and courses and talks are less about teaching teachers new things than they are reminding colleagues (and myself) about the old and simple things that reliably work to cultivate care in the hearts of learners. In that spirit, then, let’s take […]
Teach Students to Memorize Sets of Knowns
Dear colleague, The term “sets of knowns” comes from our colleague Tammy Elser, who works as a professor and consultant in western Montana. Tammy has taught teachers for decades on Montana’s 1999 Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act, which requires state educators to incorporate Native American education across the curricula. Tammy likes to tell the […]
Thankfulness on the Gradient
Dear colleague, To me, education’s not all about relationships. It’s all about learning, growing, deepening — that’s why folks send their students to school. We spend gazillions on public education around the world so folks can learn. Us teachers pour our souls into this work so students can become who they’re meant to be, so […]