In How To Turn Around Difficult Students (Part 1), I made the case that teachers struggle with difficult students because their compassion overrides doing what is best for the student.
If you haven’t read the article, I encourage you to read it before continuing with this one.
In this week’s article, I’m going to going to show [...]
In their book, Made To Stick, authors Chip and Dan Heath describe the story of Jane Elliott.
Jane was a third-grade teacher on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Struggling to explain the tragedy to her students, Jane decided to try something unusual. She separated her class by eye color.
She placed the brown-eyed [...]
Years ago I was asked to teach a summer school science class to a group of eighth graders.
Because many had failed a similar course during the school year, more than sixty students signed up.
Another teacher was brought in to help.
His name was John Dugan, and we hit it off right away.
John was hilarious.
After a test, [...]
The reason your students don’t follow directions well is because they mentally move on before you finish giving them.
Once they think they know what you’re asking of them, they’re gone.
Sometimes you can see this happening right in front of you.
It’s hard to miss.
They’ll push back their chairs and stand up, or turn and talk to [...]
I wasn’t sure I could do this.
One week into my first teaching assignment and I was having second thoughts about my career choice.
Although I had been working with kids since my junior year of high school, I had never encountered a child like Anthony before.
Anthony was one of 32 students in my fourth grade class, [...]
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