In a world of remote and hybrid instruction, there’s lots of talk about boundaries. It comes up in professional development, during staff meetings, on blogs and Twitter: boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And the topic is a worthy one. As I’ve said, constraints make us better. The path to freeing ourselves up to doing our best work is marked by self-imposed […]
The Workload-Pressure Paradox
Workload and pressure work together deviously to demoralize and demotivate even the best teachers. Here’s how it works. First, workload. The default circumstance of teaching in the twenty-first century is that as time goes on, the teacher’s workload increases. Each year there is more of all the things we’re tasked with doing: More email to […]
Thankful for You
My dear colleague, How could we have guessed, one year ago today, what was ahead of us professionally and personally? The hardship, the uncertainty, the fearfulness, the frustration, the angst, the triumphs and failures. None of us knew. This Thanksgiving morning, I’m thinking about you — about what it’s been like to travel through a […]
Things That Help: Weekly Wrap-Up Video for Parents
Recently, friend of the blog “Continuing Ed” McCarthy reached out to me with an example of his end-of-the-week wrap-up video to parents. This isn’t something I’ve done for my students’ families but, gosh, does it seem like a simple method for radically increasing teacher clarity, teacher credibility, and the home-school partnership. Let’s take a look […]
How to Teach and Reinforce Norms for the Synchronous Remote Classroom: Here’s the Simple Approach I Used
Recently, my school switched from in-person to remote learning, and I thought it might be useful to share how I approached establishing norms for our online “classroom.” (Zoomroom?) Normally I’d write this kind of thing down, but time is tight these days, and a video is better than nothing. (That’s also why I’m hosting a […]