Last time, I wrote about the absurd netherworld that has, for most of my adult life, been my email inbox and how I heroically handled all emails and arrived at the magical kingdom of inbox zero. And then about two seconds passed, and suddenly my inbox had emails in it and the perfect little “inbox zero” […]
What I Learned from Reducing my Email Inbox from About a Million* Messages to Zero
*More like 500 per inbox, but it felt like a million. For pretty much all of last school year, my inbox was a nightmare. Every time I’d open it, I’d get this messed up chemical cocktail released into my brain: one part excitement, one part anxiety. I became addicted to checking it on my phone, tapping […]
Stop Obsessing Over Your Uniqueness: How Multiple Discovery Theory Makes Us Better and Saner
If we were all academic research scientists instead of teachers, we wouldn’t be bothered when we looked in the latest teaching book or the most recent Edutopia article and found that some educator had “invented” a great new strategy that we thought we had invented ourselves. This is because academic research scientists are painfully familiar with the […]
“Discipline without Emotion”: One Teacher’s Use of a Simple Reminder
Some months ago, I received the following note from Tony Signore of Michigan, and it contains a nugget I think we could all use a moment’s reflection on: the value of emotional constancy. “Discipline without emotion” Dave, [your article on reminder strategies] made me reflect on how important it is to break down core beliefs. […]
Reader Response: What Is the Most Important Thing You Know Now that You Wish You Knew When You Started?
Jennie Wagner — reader of this blog, 7th grade teacher, and Brandisher of Awesome — recently wrote me an email with the following sage advice: Perhaps you could ask for your readers to write something for a guest page of sorts. You choose the topic and say “Go!” I bet a ton of your readers […]