If you’d like to improve your relationships — at school, at home, in your neighborhood — and would like to mature emotionally and socially, listening is a non-negotiable discipline. It doesn’t get much glory — the million-view TED talks aren’t videos of people listening; the folks who get interviewed on the morning news aren’t being […]
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Flexibility v. Consistency: The Paradox We’ve Got to Wrestle With
Flexibility makes room for individual differences: in needs, in motivations, in life circumstances, in backgrounds. Consistency makes sure we provide a guaranteed degree of quality, based on the best we know right now from research in teaching and learning. When you give teachers or students too much flexibility, you end up with a broad spectrum […]
Lots of Nails
For the first three years of my career, I worked eighty hours per week. I didn’t know a bit of the research or much of the craft knowledge. Rich and productive relationships with students took hours of time. I won engagement and motivation through brute effort — lots of bells, whistles, and speeches. It’s not […]
A Humane Email Norm that More Districts Should Consider
When I send out my email newsletter, sometimes I get an autoresponder like this: Thank you for your email. Staff email hours are 7:45 am – 4:00 pm Monday – Friday. It is common practice to expect a three-business day window between receipt of an email and a response. This is brilliant. I know when […]
Summer Books: On Race, Listening, and Work
Dear colleague, As those of us stateside enter summer break, my wish is that you do the kinds of things in the next 45 days or so that strengthen your soul, engage your intellect, refresh your body, and nourish your relationships. Will we think about teaching during these days away? Of course — especially so […]