The Real World
What is this "real world" you speak of? Who defines it? Is it the same "real world" for everyone? I was recently in conversation with colleagues about class attendance. Now,…
What is this "real world" you speak of? Who defines it? Is it the same "real world" for everyone? I was recently in conversation with colleagues about class attendance. Now,…
I have dreamed of this moment for seven years. A fantasy from 11th grade still replays itself in my mind with crystalline clarity: My first day of school as a…
Yell and sit…sit and yell, get a little louder, be a little firmer…they’ll eventually listen-right? Wrong. I walked into a room recently where an educator was sitting on a bench…
I posted a picture on our social media of a tweet from the 2006 MN Teacher of the Year Dr. Lee-Ann Stephens that read: Advice to a new elementary school…
Recently, a colleague asked me for recommendations of books about developing growth mindset. He wanted to be able to recommend something to parents whose children are "apathetic toward school." Learners. Apathetic. …
Every family is doing the best they can with the reality they are in. Full stop. I'll say it again. Every family is doing the best they can with the…
Recently, after working with teachers on shifting our approach from punishing to teaching, a teacher in attendance emailed me saying, "At first, I wasn't sure I was going to "buy…
I am a big fan of mistake making. Well, not the making of the mistakes part so much but of the learning from mistakes, expecting mistakes, embracing mistakes. What if…
It's that time of the semester again. Course evaluations. True confession time: I don't actually read mine. I am far too thin skinned for that. I send them to a…
In teacher education programs, we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers for the civic profession of education. For me, this means registering students to vote in my classes, advocating…