Tag: teaching
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Let Me Teach Like A Normal @$$ Human
No one ever told me — ever knew — that being a teacher today might require me to kill an active shooter. To triage a suicidal student. To teach amidst a pandemic. Yet this is what we are asked to do.
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Life is Hard Right Now: Normalize Before You Optimize
It’s hard being cooped up for weeks at a time. It’s hard not seeing my students. It’s hard having so much out of my control — and not knowing when it will end. We need to normalize being human before we can optimize being human — owning that this is hard.
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3 Mindsets to Let Go in 2020
New Years often make us feel like we need to do more. But, increasing well-being doesn’t just mean adding actions. It means letting go.
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Curing “Bleeding Heart Syndrome”
You can still have a heart for teaching without letting it bleed out. Here’s how to tell if you have “bleeding heart syndrome” — and what to do about it.
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A 3 Minute Tradition for Powerful Feedback
Feedback and I have a love-hate relationship. We’ve had horrendous moments, lowlights including: YouTube comments from trolling strangers; The parent who threatened to sue me for targeting his daughter by – get this – reminding her of homework due dates; A teacher’s constructive feedback of “Wear better clothes” after a PD; Blog commenters arguing that…
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4 Power Moves for Building Rapport
Seventy high schoolers I’ve never met are either staring at me or pretending I don’t exist. I’ve come 750 miles from my home in Kalamazoo to spend a day teaching this eclectic group of freshmen and sophomores, who struggle with school. I have just 6 hours to build rapport with them, to shift their thinking, and…
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How to Teach Empathy
It’s hard not to feel like our society needs more empathy – more shared connection rather than polarized disconnection. What if we approached teaching empathy the way we teach literacy?
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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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Stop Hoarding Emotions: Become a Goodness Curator Instead
My wife once pulled a human tooth from her pocket. For a split-second, I thought she was a serial killer who finally let her evidence slip (I watch too much t.v., I know). Then I remembered that: a.) she was a 2nd grade teacher and b.) she often helps students pull their loose teeth. While she…
Chase Mielke 