So, guys. Guess what? My pop-up debate Teacher Innovator project was one of seven winners of the prize! It won! And that’s because of you. I don’t know what I’m more excited about: the fact that hundreds of you believed in the project enough to vote for it; the fact that this summer I’ll fly to […]
Working Better with Parents
The past few weeks have provided me several opportunities to reflect on parenting from the teacher’s perspective. Some of the opportunities have been normal — parent/teacher conferences, my interactions with my children — and others have been serendipitous — a conversation with a mentor, repeated run-ins with an intriguing parent. Also, one of the chapters I was […]
How Humility Makes Us Better, Saner Teachers
Humility isn’t one of the highly predictive character strengths I work on with my students, but the older I get, the more I realize its centrality to a life well-lived. The pursuit of humility, once we properly understand the term, yields better relationships and faster growth. With that said, it makes great sense that we dig […]
Can Pop-Up Debate Produce Grit in Students?
With little more than one day left on the voting for my Character Lab project (update: voting has ended!), I thought it would be worth sharing with you exactly what I’m hoping to research next year with pop-up debate and grit. So let me show you the actual application that happened to be chosen as one of […]
What are the Keystone Habits for Success?
In my last post, I introduced the concept of keystone habits and invited you, dear Teaching the Core family, to weigh in on what you suspect are the answers to these questions: What are the keystone habits for success in school? How about for specific areas of literacy skill, like reading, writing, speaking, and listening? Which habits are most […]
