A bit ago, I found myself reflecting on a pair of lines from the American hero Booker T. Washington in his book Up from Slavery: Here’s a hunch I have: his second line is where his impatience in the first comes from. How you or I or our students define success is perhaps the most […]
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On the Building of Strong Children
“It is easier to build strong children,” Frederick Douglass once remarked, “than to repair broken men.” Herein we see a partnership that all schools ought to aspire to: in school, we help our communities build strong children, specifically teaching them to master things that they are unlikely to learn about outside of school. The trouble, […]
The Five Key Beliefs in Five-ish Minutes
Dear colleague, As my new book* approaches its April release and my classroom practice walks its annual traverse through the universe, I got to thinking the other day, “Hmm… if I had to explain to someone the Five Key Beliefs methodology for understanding student motivation (especially secondary student motivation), how would I do it? So, […]
An Ode to the Teacher Who Introduced Me to Etymology
I don’t know which teacher it was at Thornapple Kellogg High School — maybe Ms. Davidson or Mr. Stein or Mr. Consadine — but someone was the first to introduce me to a field of learning I love to play in: etymology. Etymology: the study of the origin of words and how their meanings change […]
In A World Gone Wild, Why Care About Student Motivation?
It’s so easy to overlook student motivation as a serious realm of study for several reasons: So in this brief article/video combo, let me give three reasons why student motivation deserves our attention, reflection, contemplation, and professionalism. (You’ll get my gist through just reading or just viewing, but you’ll get a fuller sense of what […]