“Once we experience success on any level — increased attention from an individual or group, a promotion, funding for a project — that confidence will tend to rise too quickly, and there will be an ever-growing discrepancy between our self-opinion and reality.” Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature Consider three scenarios: Teacher A is […]
Belonging Booster: Values Affirmation Exercise
Recently, my students gave me a boost in teacher morale through their completion of a simple intervention that I believe supports the value, belonging, and credibility beliefs. (These are three of the five key beliefs that I write about in Chapter 2 of These 6 Things; I overview the beliefs in this blog post.) The […]
The Five Key Fears?
“As a specialist in learning disabilities, I have found that the most dangerous disability is not any formally diagnosable condition like dyslexia or ADD. It is fear.” — “Overloaded Circuits,” by Edward M. Hallowell in Harvard Business Review’s Managing Yourself The absence of the five key beliefs might be the five key fears. If student […]
The Pedestal Isn’t Real
The thing with living inside your life while also writing a blog is that you can hardly tell what your life looks like to someone who is just reading the blog. The people I teach with know a lot of my issues. They know that my desk is often a mess, that there are stacks […]
You’re in the Montage
Everyone loves a good montage. Rocky runs through the streets of Philly.* The Mighty Ducks start working together as a team. Iron Man builds some stuff. Luke trains with Yoda. The climbers make their ascent. The montage sequence is cool. It’s this string of images where people work hard, solve problems, and persist. They’re sweating, […]