Herb Brooks was an innovator. He was a someone with that rare gift of being able to see a nearly impossible dream in the distance, and build a bridge to it. With the approach of the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, Herb knew that defeating the […]
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Rebranding: Asphalt Paint and a Story of Surrender
Whew! In my community, our school logo(an Indian) was painted over after the first home game of the season. The logo was a massive and courageous face painted on the pavement between the stadium and field. It had been there for as long as I can remember. The logos on […]
Cell Phones in School: Pros and Cons
These cell phone bans by school systems are going to work about as well as prohibition did during the 1920s. We are trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. That technology is here to stay whether we ban it or not. Let me say that I understand the […]
Elite Minds by Dr Stan Beecham: A Book Review
How Winners Think Differently to Create a Competitive Edge and Maximize Success. If you want an out-of-the-box PLC book study topic, I think this would be a great option. That title gets my attention. I listen to a pretty wide variety of podcasts. Magnus and Marcus On Coaching is a […]
Barbecue Sauce
I love Ted Lasso, and I love what Ted Lasso stands for. He self proclaims that he was been underestimated for his entire life. He says to, “Be curious, not judgemental.” It is a quote by (not) Walt Whitman. Take a second and watch this clip. The writing is awesome. […]
Creating a Culture Where Students Desire Honest Feedback
My freshman English professor in college often noted that learning can be uncomfortable at times, especially the learning that sticks with you. As noted in an earlier post, he gave very clear feedback on what we needed to improve. I think he often told us that learning was uncomfortable, because […]
Thoughts on School Improvement Plans (SIP)
I believe in school improvement. If we are going to maintain relevancy in public education, we have to have continual renewal. However, we must make sure that we are actually writing plans which promote actual improvement which includes long term retention of learned material. Many of these SIP plans look […]
Out of the Box Lessons: Tying Flies, Maclean’s Montana, and the Works of Mark Isham
The soundtrack for A River Runs Through It is cinematic perfection, specifically the main title. When the fiddle begins to hum the familiar music, I am immediately taken to early 1900s Montana. It is a time when the modern world was growing out of frontier America. Mark Isham, the composer, […]
The Great Purge: A Supplemental(s) Story
Effective teachers have a broad bank of instructional materials to supplement lesson design and delivery. Some of that material is purchased by teachers, and some of it is just material that school systems purchased during past textbook adoptions. It is a vast and valuable library that is often found in […]
The Arts Embedded: How to Incorporate Visual Arts and Music into Your Classroom
Happy Friday!!! Our goal as teachers is to give all parts of the brain a good workout. I used to kind of look down on brain based research workshops, but I think there are some really good, common sense things which we can draw from brain based research. Music has […]