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Dear colleague, Last week I gave a talk with two of our ilk, the illustrious Messrs. Chris Slaten, of Son of Laughter fame, and Mr. Drew Campbell, who founded and writes English Teacher Weekly. Our topic was “The Classroom as Cosmos,” and in the talk we riffed on the wonder-laden layers present in every normal-seeming […]

Dear colleague, My classroom practice is simple by design, and part of that simplicity is because of the few but important things I keep track of. In my career, I’ve noticed two unhelpful tendencies in the realm of tracking: Here are the things I keep track of; all of them are analog, as is my […]

Dear colleague, A couple weeks ago I made a second PD visit to Traverse City, MI. My work in this district has been focused on developing a single strategy with the middle school teachers there: tracking attempted Moments of Genuine Connection (MGCs). I taught the same session to three consecutive groups of teachers. And as […]

Dear colleague, Last year, my student Abby V shared something that I found hilarious: in her bedroom, she has photos of people she looks up to hanging near her door. Her rule for herself is that she is not allowed to leave her room unless she promises not to disappoint them. The list of people […]

Dear colleague, During my most recent workshops in South Dakota, Michigan, and Colorado, I tried to emphasize a simple point: a great teaching strategy should accomplish not just one of your objectives as a teacher but rather many of them simultaneously. In a job as complex and demanding as teaching, we’re after maximum bang for […]