Every few years, my old and faithful Toyota Camry starts doing this weird thing where it wants to veer off the road. I take it in, and I find that it’s time for a wheel alignment. When the wheels are tilted even a fraction of an inch in the wrong direction, the car doesn’t drive […]
Dave's Writer/Blogger/Business Life
6 Teaching Insights I Gained through Writing a Book
Today’s the day. The book is out. I hope you’ll read it, and I hope it spreads. Let me know what you think. Writing a book on top of teaching ninth grade isn’t something I’d recommend to anyone. It’s taken a supportive spouse, patient kids, and lots of failure. I thought it’d be good to share […]
The Business (and Educational) Sense of Selfless Service
Last weekend, I was at a conference in Boise, ID, and it was hosted by a company that used to call itself ConvertKit and now calls itself Seva. (The name means “selfless service,” and they’ve got a brief and hearty video explaining the name change — and full disclosure, it briefly mentions me — at […]
What (and How) I’m Excited to Read This Summer
If I had a few clone Daves, I’d task one of them with reading all the time. Each morning I’d give him his daily ration of coffee, chocolate, and reading material, and then he’d go off to the library or the coffee shop or an empty classroom at my school or in a hammock in […]
A Simple Trick that Helps Performance Anxiety
A few weeks ago, Grace came to me worried about how tests were making her anxious. She was doing all right on tests at the start of the year, but then she had a bad one, and then at the next one she got really anxious before the test started and while it was happening, […]