David Epstein’s The Sports Gene has to be one of the two or three best books I’ve read in the last year. It may be one of the best researched and most intellectually challenging books I’ve ever read- mostly in terms of how it forced me to challenge (and change) my assumptions about nature versus nurture….
Erica, Colleen, and I are halfway through a two-day workshop for Uncommon teachers from Boston, Rochester and Troy–two days talking about the best job in the world with great people and hopefully help get them better at it. Hard to beat. The other ‘best thing’ about the work we do is getting to be part of…
Last week I posted a video of soccer coach Khris Clemens using correction instead of critique to help his players improve. Today I’d like to share another clip from Khris’ practice–this one highlighting an important but easily overlooked topic in coaching (and teaching)–maintaining attention. Watching players attend (or not attend) to a coach often reminds me…
This post is going to be short but useful. For workshops, we take sections of Teach Like a Champion and one-page-er-ize them. Here’s a link to the one-pager we use for Precise Praise–handy all summer (and fall) I hope: for classrooms, coaching, camps and, I keep finding, parenting generally. Precise Praise Technique Notes
In Practice Perfect, Katie and Erica and I wrote about the difference between critique and correction. Critique is telling someone what they did wrong and how they could have done it better. Correction is revision. It’s causing someone to practice doing it better, ideally right away, usually accompanied by explanation but also with action. Critique has…