In an article for HaYidion, a principal at a Jewish day school in Houston describes his recent experiment in shadowing a student for a whole day. Among other benefits, he explains that this “day in the life” exercise gave him greater empathy for students, credibility with students, and insight into effective instruction. It got me […]
professional development
How to Improve School Cultures, Part 4b: A Case Study in Earnest and Amicable Argument as PD
Last time, I laid out the case for argument as a means to radically enriching school cultures. You’ll want to read that post before this one. So: arguments make for rich school cultures — not just arguments in our classrooms, but arguments in our meetings. But what does this actually look like? Thankfully, there’s a […]
What Makes Great Professional Development?
Good professional development doesn’t come in a single kind of package. It kills me when I hear people say things like, “Everyone knows that one-and-done PD doesn’t work.” Find a dozen master teachers and ask them to list the five best professional development experiences they’ve ever had, and you’ll find that they’s list every kind of […]
No More (New) Reading
“I can’t imagine a man enjoying a book and reading it only once.” — C. S. Lewis It’s getting on summer time, and if you’re at all like me, then you’ve got an unreasonably high stack of books that you want to tear into between now and when school starts back up. Before you get […]
How to Use the Non-Freaked Out Framework for Personal PD: A Case Study
The array of professional development resources available to teachers today is as overwhelming as it is incoherent. Every month, dozens of books and hundreds of articles and thousands of tweets are published. Yet for most of us, this overabundance is more a source of stress or apathy than it is a source of professional growth. This […]