Thinking Routines

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

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

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

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

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

Let me tell you something that will either deeply resonate with you or make you close this tab immediately. I think about thinking. Like... a lot. Embarrassingly a lot. From reading philosophy and psychology texts, to staring into the void and wondering why my silly "lizard brain" likes to do things. It's all thinking about thinking (think-ception!?!?!?!?). My thinking about thinking runs so wild that when I'm in the middle of the grocery store buying soup, it becomes a whole

We’ve all been there. You just finished explaining a concept, laying out a brilliant plan, or sharing an exciting new idea. You pause, look out at your audience (whether that’s a classroom of students, your kids at the dinner table, or your team at work), and you get… blank stares. It’s frustrating! We spend so much time focusing on the stuff we are sharing, but we rarely stop to think about the hidden gears turning—or completely stalled out—in the minds of the people listen

I recently started subscribing to Jamie Clark 's newsletter DistillED . I think I picked it up from a Ditch That Textbook newsletter. Each week, Jamie's newsletter highlights a different challenge in the classroom and offers quick, actionable steps. From monitoring independent practice to inclusive communication and peer feedback, I've found some excellent research-based strategies to enhance the classroom experience for students. This week's newsletter focused on incorpora