Blog – Page 2 – Josh Stumpenhorst

Tearing Teachers Down

Posted on June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

Share the Positive

Posted on May 25, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

#Drawn2Teach Book Study (April 22 – May 5)

Posted on April 7, 2019April 7, 2019 by stumpteacher

The following was originally posted by George Couros and is reposted here with permission. “I am really looking forward to starting up a book study with Drawn to Teach on Instagram. It is a quick process that will encourage participants to reflect on their teaching while connecting with other teachers. This is a book published by IMPressin […]

Twas the Night Before Testing

Posted on March 25, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

Changing Minds One Book At A Time

Posted on March 16, 2019 by stumpteacher

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. […]

Observe All Things

Posted on March 13, 2019March 13, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

Bringing to Scale

Posted on March 10, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

Constant Self-Improvement

Posted on March 5, 2019March 6, 2019 by stumpteacher

If you are like me, you taught for many years the way in which you were taught. I still wish I could go back to my first class…or two…and apologize to them all. Many things I did were done purely because I didn’t know any better. I handed out detentions for kids who didn’t do […]

Drawn to Teach

Posted on March 3, 2019March 4, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]

For the Fun of It

Posted on February 23, 2019 by stumpteacher

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 […]