Tearing Teachers Down

There is an old Greek story about a herald seeking advice for his master on how to rule a city. Instead of offering verbal advice he walked through a field where he cut the tops off the tallest and healthiest plants. The herald returned to his master explaining what had transpired. The master took this […]

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Share the Positive

The other day while out running I was reflecting on my sons and their experiences in school. Specifically, I was thinking about how I have rarely had a teacher reach out to say something nice about either of my sons. Yes, my kids are not perfect and one of them does like to occasionally push […]

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Twas the Night Before Testing

As schools either head out or return from Spring Break, it officially begins standardized testing season for so many of us. I have never, and likely will never, be a fan of testing in the manner in which so many of us required to test. Nor will I likely ever put a great amount of […]

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Changing Minds One Book At A Time

Anyone who is paying attention to the world around us knows we have a problem with empathy and ignorance. Too many people are filled with hate fueled by this ignorance and lack of empathy. The tragedy in New Zealand is just the latest in a long list of violence and hatred specifically focused on Muslims. […]

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Observe All Things

As an educator, the best way to improve our craft is to see, hear, and experience new ideas. Yes, observing another teacher can go a long way in providing us with different ways to do our job. I believe this is the single best way we can grow as educators. However, the observations should not […]

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Bringing to Scale

Bringing an idea to scale is something we hear a lot in education. When something is working really well in one classroom or school, we think we need to replicate it on a larger scale. Small ideas are pushed to become big ideas with big implications and buy-in. Yes, there are some great ideas which […]

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Drawn to Teach

On March 8th, Drawn to Teach, my newest book will be released into the wild. I have never been more excited about a project than I am about this book. It has been nearly two years in the making and I think is unlike anything out there for educators. Given that it is a graphic […]

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For the Fun of It

Sometimes we do things in school for the fun of it, and that’s ok. That past two days in our library we had fun. The library was booked for a documentary project but the teacher had to bump it back due to all of the snow/cold days we had recently. As a result, I found […]

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