molehills out of mountains
At-Risk
Superheros, Superegos, and Student Discipline
How we treat our best students shows our aspirations; how we treat our most challenging students shows our values. ~ Mendler and Curwin This past Friday, an incident occurred at school that had me seeing red. While supervising in the cafeteria during the lunch period, I was asked by our one of our cafeteria staff … Continue reading
Building Hope
Instilling a sense of hope in students is more important than demanding responsibility…. Hope must precede responsibility because kids who lack hope have no reason to act in responsible kinds of ways. ~ Allen Mendler (Motivating Students Who Don’t Care – ASCD) As I have written before, in Providing Hope for the Hopeless, it is … Continue reading
Have High Expectations? Provide High Support.
As a high school basketball player, I struggled with free throws. On the ability spectrum, I fell somewhere between Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neil — certainly not great, but not terrible. However, my coach set high expectations for free throw shooting percentage and, as a player, I was expected to meet those expectations. Presto. High … Continue reading
Re-Engaging the Disengaged: 5 Strategies
When the world says, “Give up,” Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.” ~ Author Unknown A common response, when people find out that I work with junior high school students, is an eye roll and a comment to the effect of, “I could never do that.” The thought of spending five days a week with nine-hundred … Continue reading
Achieving “the Impossible”
It always seems impossible until its done. ~ Nelson Mandela Read enough blog posts, follow enough people on Twitter and attend enough educational conferences and you might be fooled into thinking that moving schools into the 21st Century is a relatively easy task. There are lots of success stories–many examples of dedicated educators making tremendous progress … Continue reading
