Note from Dave: This guest post is from Lynsay Fabio, the New Orleans educator behind The Classroom Management Course. Enjoy! If you’ve been following Dave’s blog recently, you know that he’s having a bit of a head explosion, in large part because of the super-important role that knowledge-building plays in…well, just about Everything Education, and […]
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Obscurity of Purpose Leads to the Wasting of Time
In his classic Essentialism, Greg McKeown observes: Clarity of purpose…consistently predicts how people do their jobs… The fact is, motivation and cooperation deteriorate when there is a lack of purpose. You can train leaders on communication and teamwork and conduct 360 feedback reports until you are blue in the face, but if a team does […]
On Sunk Costs (and Whether You Should Change Your Curriculum Even When You Recently Spent a Lot of Money on the Current One)
If the curriculum your district spent X dollars on two years ago is bad,* then sticking with it because you spent X dollars on it two years ago doesn’t make sense. The X dollars is a sunk cost — money you can’t recover, whether you stick with the curriculum for ten more years or you […]
The Four Pillars of High School Success
Recently, I shared the Everest statement of our social studies team. I’m not the leader of the team, but boy, am I privileged to be a part of it. This time, I’d like to share how our ninth grade transition team focuses its work. Why Ninth Grade? Every year of a child’s education is important, […]
An Everest Statement for a Social Studies Department
In our social studies PLC, we brainstormed an Everest statement* a couple of months ago, and I’ve been meaning to share it. The secondary social studies department aims to produce productive, contributing, and positive CITIZENS who are: –KNOWLEDGEABLE (historically, economically, and civically literate); –WISE (mature, open-minded, and globally aware); and –ENGAGED (participate in civic duties; […]