The Gratitude Challenge
Posted inCzyz

The Gratitude Challenge

I had the fortuitous opportunity to stumble across a book last year called The Zen Teacher. The book is written by California high school English teacher Dan Tricarico, and focuses…
Behavior Instruction
Posted inBryan

Behavior Instruction

  You would never make a student who struggles with reading clip down or lose a ticket if they didn’t read something correctly.   It doesn’t make any sense.  …
In Case of a Fog Delay
Posted inCzyz

In Case of a Fog Delay

  Friday night, I took my children to a baseball game. It was a beautiful night for a game. Warm. Calm. Clear. 70 degrees, with a nice, cool breeze coming…
PD Checklists
Posted inBryan

PD Checklists

  If professional development is focused more on the how than the why than it’s very likely that checking off the checklist that outlines the how will be seen by…
A Chorus of Can’t and Won’t
Posted inCzyz

A Chorus of Can’t and Won’t

  What are our students capable of? I would argue that we will never know unless we try.   I used to work with a colleague who taught in a…
Point at the Process
Posted inBryan

Point at the Process

  When a student is not doing his work teachers, generally speaking, say one of two things.   They will say to themselves, “He’s not doing his work!” or “This…
Questions We Should Be Asking Students
Posted inCzyz

Questions We Should Be Asking Students

  For many years, we have asked students small questions. Detail questions. Fact questions. Who? What? Where? When?   We must ask big questions of students. Some of our questions…
Sometimes
Posted inCzyz

Sometimes

  Sometimes it seems like we are doing the right thing when we are actually doing the wrong thing. Sometimes we are doing the right thing based on what we…
Teaching Tasks
Posted inBryan

Teaching Tasks

  If we teach things without a clear why, what we are essentially doing is teaching tasks.   For instance, if we believe we are teaching opinion writing to learn…