A month or so ago, I visited a school in Middletown, DE: Alfred G Waters Middle School, known to my heart as Shark Nation. My first time there was half a decade ago for a These 6 Things workshop, and since then we’ve done a fair bit of remote work on student motivation. As I […]
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Satisficing ≠ Quiet Quitting
The other day I fiddled up the end of a talk on the Will to Teach by making it seem like satisficing is something that you do for every single task on your plate as a teacher. Astute listeners unfamiliar with my work were left thinking, “Huh — it sounds like he’s telling me to […]
Competence ≠ Perfection
Something a lot of us teachers need reminding of is that becoming Credible in the eyes of a student has little to do with becoming a perfect teacher or doing everything at the level of total excellence. Instead, our students’ hearts are much more gracious than this; they long not for our perfection but for […]
The Gift of Many Teachers
One thing I like to repeat often to my students is that they have many more teachers for my class than just me. First and last, they have themselves. No one else in the world is more able to see the things they’re thinking, the things they’re wondering, the things they’re confident or unsure about. […]
This Weekend, Maybe Work on a Work Schedule
Earlier this school year, I was fortunate to spend a day in Arkansas working with early career teachers. Our focus was on establishing a work schedule prior to the start of the school year. It strikes me this morning that fall is a good time for all of us to consider revisiting this important discipline. […]