At Troy Prep, one of our Uncommon Schools, graduating 8th graders traditionally write thank you notes. They write them to anyone they want–teachers, parents etc.–for anything they want. Principal, Lauren Catlett, recently shared a few with me. The notes are lovely and gracious. They include comments like: “Mr. Belanger, Ms. Hernandez and Ms Strand, thank you…
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending an hour or so with Daisy Christodoulou. She was stateside for a conference and had taken the train from New York to spend the morning watching and discussing video of teachers with me and my team. We had a little time between train and meeting and…
This year, when my wife perfunctorily asked me, “Is there anything you need for Father’s Day?” and started to turn away (there’s never been a “yes” to this question), I surprised her…. “Actually…” This year I realized there really was something that I wanted and my kids were the only people who could give the gift….
Previous predictions of the future of ed-tech looked like this. Teachers mostly just went about their business. I came across this article in EdWeek by Benjamin Herold on Thursday. It bemoans the woeful use of educational technology by teachers and starts off with this observation: A mountain of evidence indicates that teachers have been painfully…
Here’s a rundown of that video of Amarillo Texas Caprock High’s Beth Brannon that I promised in my recent post about unexpectedness. Beth uses, by my count, 11 techniques from Teach Like a Champion 2.0 in the clip (!), though you might never know it unless you watched carefully. Her productive class seems like a happy…