The biggest gains in our professional lives don’t come from massive, one-time pushes. That weekend getaway to plan out next year’s curricula? It’s not the key. The really late night we plan to spend this Friday to get the stack of papers graded? Only a band-aid. The big gains come from consistency — from showing […]
Search Results for: moments of genuine connection
The Good News, the Bad News, and the Start of A Solution for Keeping Distance Learning Simple
It looks like a lot of us are going to be distance teaching for a while. I’ve been thinking and reading and reflecting on what this means and how we’d be wisest to approach it. Before I begin, let me be transparent: I’ve been paralyzed at the keyboard on this topic — far more so, […]
Maslow Was Right: What His Theory Can Teach Us about Moving Ahead
It’s possible that right now isn’t the best time to obsess about providing a continuous stream of curricular objectives for our students. That time will come, but it’s probably not now. We’re all familiar with A. H. Maslow’s theoretical hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, love, self-esteem, self-actualization, and, in his later writings, self-transcendence [1]. While […]
But What About That One Student? Use 2×10
Last time, I wrote about how our relationships with students are sure to break down. This is why I’ve added “Repair” to the CCP of teacher credibility that I wrote about in These 6 Things, Chapter 2: Care, Competence, and Passion. If you cannot identify and repair faltering student-teacher relationships, you’re bound to be befuddled […]
How to Write a Great, Kind Email (That Is, How to Write All Emails)
In a caustic age of casually scathing public rhetoric, great organizational cultures are built one edifying communication at a time. It is the case that good emails accrue their cultural benefits slowly and incrementally, but bad emails can extract their cultural deficits rapidly and semi-permanently. So the skill of writing good, kind emails is an […]