Dear Colleague,
In my last article, I asked what your Focused Finish might look like for this school year. And y'all are wise, sane people — so many of you are seeking that sweet spot between limping to summer and overwhelming yourselves with All The Things.
Based on these conversations, I'm pumped to unveil my final teacher-facing project of the school year.
The Focused Finish Seminar
In short, this offering is me saying, “Hey — let's do this together. Let's end in gentle strength. Let's ideate, plan, and implement a Focused Finish in our classrooms as an ad hoc professional learning community.”
What if there was a way for you and me and like-minded folks to work through a Focused Finish together? That's what I've made, and it has an intentionally small but robust set of moving parts. Let's look at these parts as a 1️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣ (4️⃣).
1️⃣ The live/recorded session: Get the inside scoop on how the strategies and practices I write about translate to year-end Focused Finish projects
The experience hinges on a first-time-ever live/recorded session, hosted by me. In the 90-minute talk, I'll work through:
- I. Theory: Great teachers tend to have great lives, settled hearts, thriving souls. But…why? What's at the core of this? How do motivation and growth and longevity and flourishing tie together and function in an actual, real teacher's practice in Spring 2025? How do we do good work without burning ourselves out? What's the classroom work that matters most at year end?
- II. Application: Having established the theory, we'll then move into creating beguilingly simple action plans that let us improve strategically.
- III. Implementation: Let's look at practical, real-world examples* drawn from my practice and my books so YOU can create an authentic, self-chosen Focused Finish plan that you actually want to follow.
*The power will be in the practical examples.
I'm most excited to share practical examples (past and present, from my classroom and others) of what Focused Finished mini-projects can look like. This school year, I've seen a large increase in my teaching workload, and that's made it so I've not been able to share a lot of the insights and experiments I've been running.
This session is going to let me off-load those insights to a select group of like-minded folks. Here are the things I've got planned so far:
- Woodenizing AI for learning* (i.e., there's lots of chatter about AI literacy and teaching young people to use these new tools, but doing this in a wise, learning-conducive way is uncommon right now)
- Increasing the quantity and quality of both student writing and teacher sanity*
- Improving a student skill area via student “Boot Camps” (e.g., speaking/argumentation skill-building with a Pop-Up Debate Boot Camp)
- A Moments of Genuine Connection year-end project that involves 10 minutes of student writing and life-giving capstone check-ins*
- Year-end Value belief projects (e.g., mini-sermons, Valued Within)
- More in the works…
*These are happening as we speak in my classroom. This'll be the spot to hear about them and ask questions.
2️⃣ The asynchronous, exclusive discussion platform
Live/recorded sessions like the one I'll be giving are POWERFUL experiences (my career trajectory has been changed by single sessions like the one I'll lead) but they are DIFFICULT TO PUT INTO PRACTICE. This is where the online community comes in. When you register, you get immediate access to an exclusive, asynchronous discussion platform where you and I and like-minded folks can share what's working, what's not, weekly updates, and helpful resources. It's one of those “you'll get out what you put in” things. Though I'm preparing the live/recorded session to be as powerful as possible, I suspect it's in the writing and reading of posts two to three times per week that folks will find the real power of this program.
(Says the guy whose entire career has been shaped by the public writing he does — not primarily because of what that writing gets me but because of what that writing does to me.)
This online community will be open until June 30, too — so even after the school year is over, you can pore through what we post, share intentions for next year, and whatever else you'd like to do.
Speaking of summer and beyond…
3️⃣ The Value Belief Mini-Course = yours for life
So, crazy story — when I published this course a few months ago, zero folks registered. Actually. Zero.
I've never released anything to such perfect silence. It's been an amazing, important, soul-shaping, difficult experience for me. I'm genuinely grateful.
But here's the deal: the course is great!
- Short, focused, earnest lessons
- Practical “take and try” applications for each one
- Rich in both theory and implementation insights
- It addresses what I am confident is both the most difficult and most poorly understood and the most important of the Five Key Beliefs in our present times!
So basically, I believe it to be my best work on a critical (though invisible) layer of all classrooms (the Value belief). And that's why I'm giving it to anyone who registers for The Focused Finish Seminar.
(The Value Belief Mini-Course is a lifetime access product, too. This makes it perfect for mid-summer dabbling or continuing ed if you're into those kinds of things.)
(4️⃣ Register by 3/24 and get a simple surprise)
Folks who've been following my work the longest or who've been diving deep into my blog or videos or books for a while will especially like this one.
So what're ya waiting for, colleague?
It's $97 for all of that.
(All the details are here.)
If you've got questions once you peruse that page, let me know. (Scroll down on the page for questions I anticipate; scroll further for folks who can vouch for the work I do.)
Enroll in the Focused Finish Seminar right here.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
P.S. The timing of this workshop is intentional — giving you enough runway to implement before the school year ends, while being realistic about the energy you have available. I hope you'll join us.
P.P.S. Please try to get your school to pay before you pay out of pocket. To help, I made a formal funding request letter and administrator information sheet. If I can do anything else to help on that front, email me.
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