Update from Dave: My new book is out, and it highlights ten practical methods for improving student motivation in all kinds of classrooms. One of those strategies is — you guessed it — Woodenize All of It. Get your copy here. One of the best things you can do to help students put forth greater […]
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What If We Had Time?
A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany: what if, instead of rushing bedtime with my kids, I pretended that I had enough time to give them the love they each desired? It’s a silly question, really. Many of you are likely the kind of superstar parents that would never need to ask this. But […]
Faculty and Staff Door Signs: A Simple Schoolwide Credibility Signal
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 […]
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 […]