Kym was convinced that she had a disorder: she was unable to speak in class, and there was no way to solve it. This is what I learned on the first day of school when Kym filled out an index card telling me a bit about herself and who she wanted to be. I can […]
Search Results for: moments of genuine connection
Belonging Booster: Values Affirmation Exercise
Recently, my students gave me a boost in teacher morale through their completion of a simple intervention that I believe supports the value, belonging, and credibility beliefs. (These are three of the five key beliefs that I write about in Chapter 2 of These 6 Things; I overview the beliefs in this blog post.) The […]
The Five Key Fears?
“As a specialist in learning disabilities, I have found that the most dangerous disability is not any formally diagnosable condition like dyslexia or ADD. It is fear.” — “Overloaded Circuits,” by Edward M. Hallowell in Harvard Business Review’s Managing Yourself The absence of the five key beliefs might be the five key fears. If student […]
How to Build Resilience, Part 3: Adaptability
During these past weeks of reflecting on resilience’s three pillars, I’ve started to see a relationship between the three, how they really do act like the legs on a stool. If you’ve got a deep sense of purpose but not an acceptance of unpleasant realities then you’ll err toward unchecked idealism. Unchecked idealism happens when […]
24 Tips for Leading Better Professional Development
At this point in my career, I’ve led over 100 different professional development experiences, ranging from keynotes to conference sessions to whole-day breakouts. The work has been with a broad spectrum of audiences: whole district staffs ranging from 6 people (total staff, whole district) to 1,500; elementary teachers exclusively; secondary teachers exclusively; ELA-only groups; only […]