[Note: This article is a follow-up on my previous query regarding whether or not Cal Newport’s new book, Slow Productivity, is relevant to our work as teachers. I’m finished with the first part of the book, Do Fewer Things, and so far I’d say, “Yes — the book can inform and clarify how we teachers […]
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End of Year Value Booster: Ask Them
Last Tuesday, I argued that you and I as teachers should take 10 shots at telling our students why their work in our classes has mattered this school year. Between now and year’s end, give 10 short (30-60 second) mini-sermons (see Strategy #4 in The Will to Learn) that answer this question: What was it […]
Three Outputs of Truly Great Teachers
GREAT. No living person has thought more about the word “great” than Jim Collins has in his long and focused career. If you’re a teacher in search of surprising insights into both your career and your life, you could do a lot worse than picking up Collins’ Good to Great (hardcover; Kindle; audio). It’s not […]
End of Year Value Booster: “What Was It All For?” End of Year Mini-Sermon
In Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Hamilton asks Burr, “What are you waiting for? What do you stall for? We won the war — What was it all for?” This time of the school year, this is a great question to answer for our students. What, in your view as […]
The Second-Best Time to Tell Students School Matters…
…is today. The first-best, obviously, is the day they begin school, then every day thereafter. Trouble is, I don’t control the first-best. So I’ll take the second, with gratitude. After all, how often in life do you find yourself 100% in control of bringing about a second-best thing? I know, I know. At the time […]