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I have been teaching for almost twenty years. That sentence used to feel like a credential. Lately, it has started to feel like a question. Not in a crisis-of-confidence way, I love this job as much as I ever have, maybe more! But in a genuinely curious way. What would I do differently if I started over? What would I build if I forgot everything I had already created and started from the standards up? This past year gave me an unexpected answer to that question. As an academi

Let me tell you about three professional development experiences from my career. All different content, yet one common thread endures. My very first PD session as a first-year teacher was a video about working with special education students. It used language and terminology that had been considered outdated for years. Nobody in the room flagged it. Nobody acknowledged it. We watched it, we signed the attendance sheet, and we moved on. I left knowing less about how to serve m

We are eight posts into this series! What a wild ride it has been! Eight posts, somewhere north of twenty thinking routines. A Costco parking lot, a Tonic deep cut, This Old House, a soup can, and one very passionate argument about the Oxford comma. We have covered routines that teach students to observe carefully, argue honestly, find their words, push past their first thought, sit in complexity, see before they interpret, and document how far their thinking has traveled. An

I've always been fond of a good 'ol home renovation show. It's something that actually is deeply rooted in my childhood. Long before the days of brothers who had property or uppers that needed to be fixed, there was one show I would watch on the regular with my dad. This. Old. House. Not only would I watch our local PBS station to see what Bob, Norm, Richard, Tom, and Roger were up to, but my dad also collected the books, the plans, the suggested gear. Unlike the modern home

Brief Update! Oh man, nothing like getting injured and sick as heck in the last 10 days of school. For the first time in AGES, I had to leave school last week because I fell physically ill (after making it to my second-floor classroom on crutches nonetheless! But, I'm back to about 90%, we've got 3.5 days until summer, so here are some fun updates before we get to today's wacky template! Job change! Two weeks ago, I found out that I'm staying in the same school, but transit

There is a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial that lives rent-free in my brain. It is one of those commercial gems that then morphs into other shower-thought style derivations. You probably know the one. Two people walking toward each other, completely oblivious. One has chocolate. One has peanut butter. They collide. And the result is the greatest food combination in the history of human civilization. It is, when you think about it, a missed connection that actually connec

Sorry for no post on Wednesday, I'm dealing with one of those lovely "spring flus" and my body waged war against itself....but I'm back today! Your next Visible Thinking Routines post will be out next Wednesday!! I grew up in the era of giant maps painted on blacktop (the sweetness of the 90's amirite?). My elementary school had one, a full map of the United States, state lines and all, spread across the outdoor concrete in faded paint. I remember spending recesses running a

I haven't written about specific tools very often. But know that when I do, it's because something stopped me cold and I couldn't not share it. I was at TCEA in February, doing what I always do at conferences between sessions: wandering the expo floor with the energy of a golden retriever who has just been let off the leash. I'm intrigued by all of the new shiny things that people show off, so I'm genuinely intrigued by finding things I believe could have a meaningful impact,

I was vibe-aware before the kids these days started talking about vibes. Though I always feel like Steve Buscemi when I hear them say it. What I can say, and for those of you who have either seen me present, heard me talk, or chatted with me, I definitely am self-aware of the vibe I bring everywhere. Part of my inner child thinks I'm Jeff Spicoli from the end of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.. My tasty waves are something I find engaging, or I hope engages others. My cool buz

Almost 30 years ago (in July, 1996)...(god I'm old)...one of the most underrated bands of all time released their debut album Lemon Parade. The third single, released in February of 97, is what created a core musical memory for me. The song opens with its title and perfect follow-up statement: If you could only see the way she loves me, then maybe you would understand, why I feel this way about our love, and what I must do. Tonic's "If You Could Only See" is the perfect argum

Last Monday, I shared the GoFundMe in the Ditch That Textbook online community. (You should definitely join!!!) When I shared it, I described it as "an off-the-rails idea for a 'social media' template," and a "shower thought meets asking Claude some questions meets Canva during my plan." I expected some nice engagement. Maybe a few teachers saying they'd try it. What I did not expect was for the community to hand me two more ideas before the day was over. That is the thing ab

Some mornings, I walk into my classroom before my students arrive and I tape a sign to the board. Several years ago, it started on a large Post-it pad, the kind on a wheeled easel — on a morning when I had planning period first, and I knew, before anyone walked through my door, that I was not okay. The sign tells my students what they need to know: where to find their assignments, that loud or unexpected noises are a trigger for me, and that I cannot process more than one per

I want to tell you about the worst argument I have ever witnessed at a Thanksgiving dinner table. It was not about politics. It was not about religion. It was about a parking spot. My father, a man who is, in most other contexts, a perfectly reasonable human being, spent forty-five minutes constructing an airtight legal, moral, and philosophical case for why he had been wronged in a Costco parking lot three weeks prior. He had witnesses. He had a diagram. He had, I am not exa

As you may have noticed, I've continued combing the wide world of the internet to find social media and/or website templates to manipulate into a tool for students to showcase their content mastery. While I've typically grabbed "safe" websites that feel like they have an obvious connection, today's is something that came at me from thinking a little sideways . Here is how this one started. I was brainstorming with Claude this morning, which, if you have been reading this blog

I was a senior in high school in the fall of 2001. The internet's influence was growing. Google was becoming more mainstream. And the adults in charge of education were absolutely losing their minds about it. Which one of those kids is me, Senior Year, 2002? The concern, stated with full sincerity by serious people in serious publications , was that students would simply Google everything, copy and paste their way through school, and render the entire enterprise of educatio

We are four posts into this series now, and I want to take a second to zoom out. Post One was about giving students the tools to recognize that they're already thinking. Post Two was about teaching them to slow down and notice things... really notice them, the way you notice a piece of art differently on the second look than the first. Post Three was about helping students find their words ; about the gap between having a thought and being able to actually say it out l

Let me tell you something about my office. It is covered in Funko Pops. Floor to ceiling, shelf to shelf, every available surface. I have lost count of how many I own, but the number is somewhere north of embarrassing and south of intervention. My classroom alone has roughly thirty of them staring at my students every single day — a silent, big-eyed audience for every lesson I teach. My office in February, before my recent reorganization, there are now more, and it looks craz

Will Ferrell once played legendary Cubs announcer Harry Caray on SNL. If you've never seen it, the bit is basically: Harry Caray is a man completely unmoored from social norms, asking the most unfiltered, bizarre questions imaginable: to scientists, to astronauts, to anyone fortunate enough to sit across from him, with zero apology and maximum enthusiasm. At one point, Harry says, completely unprompted: " I'm curious like a cat. My friends call me Whiskers. " And here's the t

How many of us can relate to the following situation? Last year, I was teaching a unit on the Civil Rights Movement, and we had just finished reading a primary source, a firsthand account from a Freedom Rider. Heavy stuff. Important stuff. The kind of stuff that you want students to genuinely sit with. So I asked the class what they thought. Silence . Not the good kind of silence. Not the "I am processing something profound" silence. The "I have not been given a single tool t

I owe you an apology and an explanation. Back in February, I announced the launch of Vibe Coding for Educators , my 20-part YouTube series designed to take teachers from "I have never touched a line of code in my life" to "I just built my students a custom French Revolution simulator, and I cannot be stopped." I laid out the whole plan. Two tracks. Twenty episodes. Five minutes each. Pure pedagogy meets pure chaos. And then... the new World of Warcraft expansion Midnight dro