The wildcard of student motivation, in any given classroom, is teacher credibility. If kids believe you, they’re going to earnestly consider what you have to say, whether it’s about the content they’re learning or the other four key beliefs. When my students believe in me — when they find me credible — they listen to […]
Instruction
Ms. Blizzard and the Potential Weight of Single Interactions
I was giving a keynote to the wonderful Colorado English Language Arts Society last fall, and the guy giving the keynote right before mine was none other than award-winning author Matt de la Peña. I had heard plenty about Matt before, and I even had some of his novels in my classroom library. What I didn’t […]
Not Just Home Life: A Critical Mass of Belief-Supporting Contexts
I want to camp out on the idea of home life today. Too often, I think we tend to write kids off who meet the following two conditions: They’ve got a tough home life. They are not motivated to learn. When I say “write them off,” I mean one of these: We stop trying to […]
Five Key Beliefs: The Source of Abbe’s Superpowers
Abbe personifies a lot of the habits and traits I want my students to cultivate: working hard each day, maintaining a great attitude, treating others with kindness, keeping track of her work and completing it with care, asking questions when she has them, appreciating a challenge, and on and on. If my classes were filled […]
A Case Study in Simplified Instruction: The Write Structure
Note from Dave: This article is actually by Lindsay Veitch, educator and author of The Write Structure. Enjoy! I brought my two-year-old to his pediatrician, Dr. Lisa Brown, for a well-visit the day we launched my ebook, The Write Structure. I casually mentioned this exciting news to Dr. Brown, and she replied as only the doctor of children […]
