In Braiding Sweetgrass (2020), author and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer describes one of her students’ graduate thesis projects. The student was familiar with a disagreement in traditional knowledge about the most sustainable way to harvest sweetgrass. This student designed her…
“Your rights stop where your siblings’ rights start!” That was one of the dad-isms I grew up with as my parents guided my four brothers and me in sharing rooms, sharing the only television, sharing desserts, sharing the family car.…
An off-the-cuff math question, “How much do you suppose they’re making off this ridiculous spectacle?” turned an excruciatingly dull evening into a creative endeavor. Yep, a math question. The other chaperones and I were hostages to a truly ghastly theatrical performance.…
Reading has been my top pastime since I was six years old, so in this year of “new normal,” I’m not surprised that my total was 153 books. A few stats: 90 were audiobooks—my companions while gardening, walking, driving, running.…
Stress Truth #1: Stress is inevitable; the only way to avoid it is to have no goals and no relationships. Stress Truth #2: Stress only harms you if you think it will harm you. Don’t take my word on Truth…
What’s your best guess? Will you... Glide through the holidays with tidings of comfort and joy? March through the holidays, bearing gifts and traveling afar? Muddle through the holidays, trying not to echo Scrooge with a “Bah, humbug!”? Struggle through…
Self-care is a deservedly hot topic, especially among our teachers, health professionals, and other frontline workers. Yet I’m hearing from school leaders all over the country that they’re getting push-back when they provide dedicated time for meditation and yoga, such…
The ideas I penned in this blog back in 2017 are now part of my book Doable Differentiation. Yes, I finished that novel, and yes the same strategies work to motivate students of all ages! Imagine giving a homework assignment that your…
“She made me do the green packet. No teacher should make a student do the green packet if she wants to do the yellow one. I don’t care if it means working harder.” So said a sixth grader in a…
Recently, Bryan Goodwyn wrote an article on zombie education ideas that need to go six feet under for good. And, he rightly included teaching to visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learning styles, or modalities, to improve student academic performance in that…