Success Attributes: High IQ Not Required

Taking the perspective of the student sometimes requires putting oneself in a new situation. Personally, I have put myself as nearly in their shoes as I can by becoming a teacher at a high school. I’m new to the job, and they’re new to the school and the high school experience. I’m being asked to perform while not knowing the systems that are in place; so are the students. I expect there might be better ways to do certain things, but I feel like I need to put in more time and figure it out myself. I don’t like others

Not Just a Pretty Face

Channing Tatum… so Hollywood, right? “I have never considered myself a very smart person, for a lot of reasons,” he says. “Not having early success on that one path messes with you. You get lumped in classes with kids with autism and Down Syndrome, and you look around and say, Okay, so this is where I’m at. Or you get put in the typical classes and you say, All right, I’m obviously not like these kids either. So you’re kind of nowhere. You’re just different. The system is broken. If we can streamline a multibillion-dollar company, we should be able

Flowing Thoughts, or the Curse of Cursive

My concern for all kids is whether or not they are developing a “flow” in their thinking and expression of their thoughts. Personally, I think there is a pervasive shift in the way we are communicating (a lot more oral communication and visual communication, and a lot less written). Are schools stuck in the old ways? But… how are we going to communicate / transmit ideas without being fluent written communicators? I don’t see how we can have logical arguments without being able to point to specific ideas or thoughts — it’s hard to know exactly what someone said or

Tending to Homework

Tending to Homework Have you ever raised vegetables in a garden? Let me describe the process… there are rewards, and there is work, and it is in fact a lot like doing homework. Gardens are places of intentions. It’s so exciting to mix up the fresh soil, and if you want to grow from seeds, you’ve had some fun shopping for seeds, fantasizing about the plants you’ll grow, the delicious food and meals you’ll be making…. Rewards will come in the future. Probably. There are some assumptions: you have, or can buy, some good, fertile soil; you have access to