A person who does a thing — who even does it well — is not necessarily a person who cares about what they’ve done. Instead, it’s quite possible to get a person to do a thing, and even to do it well, using just carrots or sticks. This, I would argue, is the condition of […]
Does Goal-Setting Help or Harm Teacher Motivation?
Goal-setting: does it help or harm teacher motivation? This is an interesting problem to me. From a Five Key Beliefs standpoint — which are as important to our teacher motivation as they are to our students’ motivation — goal-setting helps with Efficacy. It does this by making success clear and measurable rather than generalized. (“Defining […]
Ten Reasons It’s Good
Dear colleague, When a human soul is demotivated to do a task that soul is nonetheless required to do, the result is spiritual pain. This applies to our students. This is why I’m so passionate about cultivating student motivation all across the school day while we guide them toward mastery. But it also applies to […]
The Introvert and Extrovert Pressure Curves
I had this idea the other day when leading a workshop on teacher wellness for a network of schools in the Detroit area. The reason I’m sharing it here on the blog is that I’d like your take on whether or not it’s accurate. And also, if you’re experiencing lots of pressure in your soul […]
Does Teaching Students to Count Count as Much as Teaching Them What Counts?
I recently made a video during my lunch break picking apart four random “inspirational teacher quotes.” It’s a kind of video I’ve wanted to make for a while because… honestly, I guess I just think it’s funny to approach inspo-memes from a dry, analytical angle. If you’re curious, the video is here. But if you’re […]