Promotion and Depression

Have we met in real life? I’m usually pretty positive, and holding a positive attitude for a whole-day workshop is energizing for me, not draining. Nearly every day of my five years of meeting with teachers, someone would say, “Wow, you’ve got a lot of energy!” and it...

Teaching is Mistakes

One of my favorite teachers is Alicia Saldana. She teaches some of the most needy students in the school and requests to have them every year. She sometimes shares brain-dumps with me, and it’s my privilege to learn from her. This is what she sent me recently....

Growth and Humility

Arrogance sits at the core of traditional education. The idea that the teacher knows something and the student needs to understand it. One sees this arrogance in many traditional classrooms; an authoritarian adult keeps children in an orderly array and provides tasks...

When Twitter Ain’t Enough

There are dozens of math teachers that I admire from afar, many of whom converged on San Antonio this week for NCTM. I got to sit at the feet of these – my teacher-crushes – and hear firsthand what they may not share in print. That’s the point of conferences,...