I recently made a video during my lunch break picking apart four random “inspirational teacher quotes.” It’s a kind of video I’ve wanted to make for a while because… honestly, I guess I just think it’s funny to approach inspo-memes from a dry, analytical angle. If you’re curious, the video is here. But if you’re […]
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A Time for Ish
Earlier, I wrote about the Yerkes-Dodson Dilemma: the idea that it’s hard as a teacher to avoid slipping into either an under- or over-pressured internal world. Part of what inspired that post was a children’s book a colleague* shared with me a bit ago. The book is called Ish, and in just a few minutes […]
What I Talk About When I Talk to My Children about Spelling
Before I get into this story from my parenting, let me note three important points: Now, for the story. Every weekday morning, I drive two of my daughters to their school about fifteen minutes from our house. Both have spelling lists each week, and both have teachers who give a pretest and a test on […]
The Yerkes-Dodson Dilemma
So much of effective teaching — and good living — comes down to how well you manage to stay atop the Yerkes-Dodson Curve. When you’re up there, you get it all: The trouble is that the Yerkes-Dodson Curve is slippery. I’ve yet to meet a person who has always found it easy to stay up […]
The teacher’s work is like the landscape
Dear colleague, I’ve taken a dozen or so walks these past couple of weeks because, when I’m in the valley, sometimes that’s all I can do. Walking stabilizes my soul; it depressurizes me. I’ve got teacher-y blog posts piling up that I’ve not emailed to you lately — I’ll start sending those out to you […]