For a while I worked with a teacher who had mastered the art of getting students involved. She often talked about the obvious fact that if you do something badly, awkwardly, with incompetence, etc. students will just say - let me do that. Does it really matter if we show students our ability? Definitely when they do not know how to do something we should show them. However, when they are perfectly able to complete a task, and especially when they are accustomed to having thin

A student, who is generally not motivated about school, came to me to complain. She had a long list of points on her phone. She paced back and forth in my office, explaining that it would be good to have more structure, a student council, and more varied learning. Students should get to know one another, she said, even though she pretty much keeps to herself. Teachers should give more varied work - even though, when asked, she finds it hard to decide what that should be. I wa

I've often mused that if we could teach one idea per course per year, that would be enough. How many courses - years of study - have you gone through, from which you cannot recall learning anything in particular? Is there a class you carry with you that inspired you; a course that you still carry with you in daily life? Our idea to teach one thing to each student started organically. A student's parents were coming in to check on their daughter’s progress. In our staff meetin