Some months ago, I received the following note from Tony Signore of Michigan, and it contains a nugget I think we could all use a moment’s reflection on: the value of emotional constancy. “Discipline without emotion” Dave, [your article on reminder strategies] made me reflect on how important it is to break down core beliefs. […]
teacher LTF
Reader Response: What Is the Most Important Thing You Know Now that You Wish You Knew When You Started?
Jennie Wagner — reader of this blog, 7th grade teacher, and Brandisher of Awesome — recently wrote me an email with the following sage advice: Perhaps you could ask for your readers to write something for a guest page of sorts. You choose the topic and say “Go!” I bet a ton of your readers […]
Inking a Top-Level Goal for Your Career
The more I teach and think and write, the closer I get to organizing my work around a central, abiding outcome for all of it — a top-level professional goal. Angela Duckworth provides insight on this topic in her book. From Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance: …[D]ogged perseverance toward a top-level goal requires, paradoxically perhaps, some flexibility […]
Effort Counts Twice
Just over four years ago, I started this blog (here’s what it looked like). I started by writing through the Common Core literacy standards, and my goals were to learn something, help decrease the freak-out, and (moonshot) publish a book one day. (That happened, with Jossey-Bass Wiley). Fast forward to today. Blogging is one of the most rewarding […]
Why We Teach
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the first day of my teaching career, I met a group of sixth graders who would give me my first master class on teaching. Caleb was one of those students: huge smile, artistic genius, winsome character. Caleb, his peers, and I were all new that year to Woodlawn Middle School in Baltimore, MD. What you have to realize […]