Tag: strategies
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Why Teens Don’t Talk to Us
“My friend told me I should talk to you. I’m really struggling and I didn’t know who else to talk to…” Frequently, students come to my room, starting conversations like this. Some of them I have in class. Some I’ve never met. I work with them after school or during their lunch, listening to their…
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A Call to Help Students Find Purpose
The simplified story is that one of my students cried after I made her pick up garbage for a day. The real story goes more like this: Each trimester, I take my students on a service learning field trip. We spend a morning volunteering at a local homeless shelter. In the afternoon, students pick up…
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My Problem With the Grit Movement (And How We Can Fix It)
This post is a part of the Thriving Learner Series and originally appeared on WeAreTeachers.com. File this one under “Accomplishment Strategies.” Imagine hundreds of jigsaw puzzle pieces strewn across a table, waiting to be put together by a student. There are numerous shapes, sizes, and colors. Some puzzle pieces are flipped upside down. The student searches…
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The ABCs of Fostering Optimism
This post originally appeared on WeAreTeachers.com. File this one under “Accomplishment” concepts. We’ve all seen it. A high achieving student shutting down after a few minor mistakes. A kid who doesn’t even try, even when the task at hand is easy. A student who wails, “I suck at math.” Each of these scenes represents one…
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Grit Ladders: A Simple Strategy to Fuel Motivation
I celebrate D-minuses. I celebrate class averages that are just barely above passing. Sometimes I even celebrate a kid just turning in a paper. Not because I have low standards. D-minus is not my end goal. A group of kids barely scraping by in their education is far from my definition of satisfactory teaching. I celebrate…
Chase Mielke 