Teacher Parenting

I have two children. My wife and I call them the Weirdlings. Before you think it odd that we'd give our kids a collective nickname that echoes my own sobriquet, their name came first. In fact, we decided our kids would be called Weirdlings before we were pregnant, before we were married, before we were engaged. It was one of those long-term relationship vacation conversations, and we acknowledged the truth that we're both goofy nerds, so our kids, at that point totally hypothetical, would have no chance and no choice. They'd be weird. They'd be Weirdlings.

This is a post about Weirdling One, our eldest. For those of you looking for education thoughts in this space, we'll get there, I promise. Enjoy the journey. It matters.

He's four years old. Four and a half, I guess, since when they're this small those fractions still matter as a lot happens in those first six months. That's still a significant fraction of the child's life. He's smart and funny and, if pressed to describe him in two words I'd say, "Blurry noise." He hasn't stopped talking since he was born, and he hasn't stopped moving since then either. He's great and great fun and greatly exhausting. He's a Labrador. He loves you immediately and fully and do you want to play come on let's play watch this look at me I love you come on.

Recently he and I have started having trouble getting on. Not huge trouble, he's four. He's not sneaking out in the middle of the night and staggering in at 4am smelling of cheap apple juice with stolen Legos hanging out of his pockets. When he tells me I'm the meanest daddy it doesn't come with the vitriol only a teenager can summon up. In fact, he rarely tells me I'm the meanest. He's got a favorite stuffed monkey, who is named Monkey because when we named him we didn't realize that Monkey would be The One. Monkey has been around since Weirdling One was ten months old. When hurt or scared or tired he wants, in order 1) Monkey, 2) Momma, 3) Me. I don't begrudge Monkey or Momma third position. I get it. They're both pretty great at snuggles. So he doesn't normally tell me I'm the meanest, he tells Monkey. These are normal four year old grumps. These aren't the problem.

The problem is recently he began lying to me. About all kinds of things, most of which are things that, to quote every parent and teacher ever, "...would not have gotten [him] in trouble if [he'd] just been honest in the first place." I don't know what triggered this change. It started all at once, out of the blue. I didn't think we were giving consequences that would be so awful that he'd do anything to avoid them. I think it's probably a developmental phase (and wife research corroborates that). Funnily enough, he did just finish his first half year of pre-school, and I'm curious if he learned it there. Darn kids at school, teaching him bad habits. (That's a joke, I'm not blaming his school, his teacher was amazing.) The lying is about silly things, but things that become less silly when he looks me in the eye and protests, "No, I'm serious. I'm not lying. It's true. Really." Emphatically. Repeatedly. There will occasionally be the throwing of his brother beneath the bus.

The thing he doesn't realize, probably because he's four, is he's got the exact wrong parents for this. My wife was a teacher, and I am one, and we both have the Teacher Senses that allow us to detect Obvious Lies (I mean, he's four so he's not exactly fooling the CIA here anyway). We know the tricks to get a child to confess to a lie without meaning to. I'm guessing these are muscles non-teacher parents have to build up after they have kids. I want to stress here that I'm not saying being teachers makes us better parents. I'll get to that.

In my classroom I believe in positive reinforcement, the five positive statements to one negative statement ratio, focusing on catching kids being good rather than catching them getting into trouble. I'm pretty good at all of that in a room full of 5th graders.

I found myself struggling to remember those things with my own kid. It's one thing when a student lies to you, it's something else when your own kid looks you dead in the eye and makes claims you know aren't true. And I was having a really hard time handling it well. It was so frustrating and took me completely off guard. He's four! Really, this already? My wife doesn't get the lying, he only does it to me. In fact, he's told her the truth and then admitted, "I lied to Daddy about it."

I'm not flying off the handle with him. But I have let my reactions go right around my Teacher Brain, straight to Idiot Parent Brain. I just started taking toys away. My thought- He loves his toys. This will work. Then I did the thing I repeatedly tell student teachers not to do- I made a promise/threat/condition that I did not want to follow through on. "Next time you lie to me, I will take away your bike."

Why would I say that? I'd never say that kind of thing in my classroom. This was different somehow, he's mine. And, of course, because he's four, he lied to me again the very next day. Because I hadn't actually done anything to help him.

I was so frustrated. With him, sure, but mostly with myself. What a stupid thing to do, taking away his bike. He loves his bike. I love watching him ride his bike. He and his brother ride bikes all the time. Now, because I said a stupid thing, I have to do the stupid thing. A thing I know isn't actually going to help the behavior.

I'd have asked Dr. Google what to do, but no matter what symptoms you put into Dr Google it turns out you've got cancer of the eyeball and seventy-eight seconds to live. So instead I did exactly what Weirdling One does when he's upset- I called my mom.

Mom used to work for the City of Where I Grew Up as a parenting counselor. Basically, if the county took away your kid for some reason, she ran and taught the classes you had to take. She also, if I do say so myself, did a pretty good job with me. My sister too, I guess. But my sister is second, she had to practice on me.

I laid it all out for her, and when she started giving me advice and tips it finally struck me- These are exactly the things I'd be telling a new teacher who came to me with this problem with a student. "You should come up with a sticker chart and he gets stickers for good choices and when he gets five he gets to choose a reward." "You need to make sure the consequence is a logical extension of the poor choice." "Make sure you're focusing on the good things."

It's here that I point out that my wife also came up with the sticker chart plan and we just hadn't gotten around to implementing it yet because I was ignoring the teacher instinct that says Start as soon as possible too.

"Why didn't I think of these things! I know these things! This is how I'd teach it." I said.

"Because it's harder with your own kids. You're not teaching, you're parenting. You don't know what you're doing, you're figuring it out. It's ok."

I guess I needed someone to say that. An outside view. Extra eyes that see things that I'm too close to. I just kind of assumed being a teacher would help me be a better parent. I think it helped, but it's also not the same. Much in the same way that becoming a parent has made me a more empathetic teacher. Having kids didn't magically improve my lessons or grading or feedback, but he helped me better see the parents on the other side of the equation.

I'm incredibly lucky, because Weirdling One is an amazing kid with more love and joy in his body than you'd think one person could contain. We're going to work together, along with Momma, to help him see that the truth is the way to go. Here come sticker charts and all those other things that are worth trying. We'll work through this phase and whatever phases and challenges come after. If I can, I'll use what I've learned teaching. Mostly, I think, my wife and I will muddle along as best we can.

And when Da Squish hits this stage, we'll be a little more prepared. Of course, he's very different from his brother, so who knows what that preparation will be worth.

Post Script- I want to note that I could have asked my Dad for help too. Still probably will. Especially since he's going to text me about four seconds after reading this post asking how his grandson is doing.

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written two books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher and THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome). I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.

Truth, Health, and Students

Today part-time White House resident, full-time golfer Donald Trump made an announcement regarding tweeted while talking out loud to Fox News that the armed forces of the United States would no longer be a place where trans-gender people are welcome.

At the same time the Republican Party is busily attempting to strip health care from millions while having no replacement plan of their own.

These are facts, and though anyone still supporting Trump has a purely theoretical relationship with facts, facts are still important.

These two events (no, a tweet thread isn't normally an event but the president* is too much of a coward to hold a press conference so we have to pretend twitter like a place the Kommander-In-Chief ought to speak from) directly and indirectly impact our students. See, you knew I'd get to education eventually. It's all coming around. Since they impact our students, we are not doing our jobs if we don't talk about them and look at them from our classrooms.

The president* openly speaking of trans people as unable to properly serve is an open attempt to lessen them. If you need me to go into why that's the case, you need to spend a little time in a room thinking about it. No one should have to hold your hand and say, "You see, all people deserve to be treated like people." If you counter with the "cost of their health care" line we've been fed I'll know you actively avoid facts. Short version- What he said is wrong.

We have trans students. Every single school in the country. And the second-highest highest post in America, right behind Putin, just singled those students out and told the country they are not good enough to serve. This will reverberate through the trans community, and will continue to embolden those who would rather hate than think. Since election hate crimes have become more and more prominent on campuses. This tweeted policy continues to make that ok. It's a continuing Othering of anyone not straight, white, and Christian. Othering is the opposite of education.

Our classrooms are supposed to be safe spaces. You cannot learn if you are surrounded by hate. Teachers need to be barriers, force fields that dissipate the hate before it can get inside the room and the school. It's summer break, but we can't pretend this is going to go away before we once again stand before our students. We must keep in mind the hate being spread from White House, we need to know that our schools and students don't exist in a bubble. We must have open conversations that emphasize truth and safety. If you don't feel your students are old enough to handle an explicit conversation about trans rights, there's still conversations about those different from us. Read The Sneetches. Discuss. Slip the message in there.

The attempted dissolution of the Affordable Care Act has a less obvious direct impact on our students in school. Especially for all our classes where no student ever gets sick or hurt ever. I know my fifth graders are always perfectly healthy in every way and never need to doctor. I mean, except for the kid who needed surgery. And...well, you get the idea. It would be foolish to assume a successful revocation of the ACA does not impact our kids.

How many of our kids are using health insurance for off-campus appointments? How many of our kids will lose out on the basic human right of being healthy if the GOP manages to repeal? And how many school-based experts will lose their jobs in the ACA is repealed? You think, "What can we do about that?" Call. Vote. March. Discuss. Don't ignore.

This is less a conversation we have with our students, unless you teach older kids. I wouldn't delve into the health care debate with my fifth graders, but I would talk about helping those in need with real life examples. We should be aware of what it means to our kids, and we can talk about it among ourselves as professionals who teach in the real world. Many teachers talk about preparing students for The Real World and doing assignments that would matter in The Real World. We need to walk the walk amongst ourselves too.

Fueled by Coffee and Love by Mari Venturino

You may remember that I hosted a very special #WeirdEd happy hour back in April (The Story of Tonight) where we swapped stories and shared ideas. That was in the middle of a very crazy book-creating process. Well, guess what? It’s published!

Fueled by Coffee and Love is a collection of real stories by real teachers. Each contributor shared a story from their teaching journey. Some stories will make you smile, some stories will make you think, and some stories will make you cry. These are our stories.

Still not convinced? The intro was written by the one and only Doug Robertson! And, if that isn’t enough, all proceeds from this book will be donated to classrooms and teachers. (Ok good, you’re convinced. Go buy a copy, then read on.)

Jennie Magiera mentioned Chimanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk in her ISTE 2017 keynote--if you haven’t seen this TED Talk, take a second to go watch it before we chat.  Adichie says, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TED Talk, The danger of a single story). It is a dangerous thing to allow others to tell our stories, especially when they are doing so for political or economic gain.

This project started in February 2017--my AVID 8 students were starting 20Time projects, and I decided to do one myself. My inspiration for this project stemmed from news media and politicians telling a one-sided tale of what teaching and education is and is not. I feel frustrated that the individuals making decisions about our profession have little idea of our day-to-day joys and struggles.

What I thought would be a small and manageable project exploded (in a great way) and turned into a full-scale book project. In March through May, I gathered stories and facilitated the editing process. A total of 53 stories came in! Then, it took May and June to finish the editing, final formatting, getting a logo and cover design created, and getting the whole thing published. (Shoutout to Ray Charbonneau & y42k Publishing Services for making the self-publishing process easy.)

One of the biggest challenges in this project was recruiting a diverse cross-section of teachers, especially including teachers of color. Because this project grew out of my group of friends and PLN, I know there is some diversity of authors and I also know it isn’t representative of all teachers. (And, since I don’t know all of the authors personally, I’m making this judgement based on their stories, bios, and Twitter profiles.) This is something in the forefront of my mind as I plan for Volume 2.

Get yourself a copy of the book on Amazon--while you’re there, buy a second copy to gift to a teacher who has made an impact on you!

If you’re interested in writing and/or editing for FBCAL Volume 2, please fill out the interest list and I’ll email you once Volume 2 gets rolling this fall. Find out more about the project on the Fueled by Coffee and Love website. 

Blixa Bargeld, Hating Guitar, and Connections to Teaching

I'm reading the hardcover book that comes with the super deluxe edition of Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and it's full of interesting and insightful essays about the band and their process. As a person who buys Blu Rays for the special features, this level of depth is exactly the kind of thing I want. I haven't been a fan of Cave for long, but I'm not sure if I've ever fallen this hard this fast for a musician. I can't get enough.

One particular essay, the third in the book, is called "A Beautiful, Evil Thing- The Music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds" by David Pattie. It's wide ranging, covering the band's dissonant yet gorgeous discography and discussing just what it is that makes them sound the way they do. A section of this essay is about one of Cave's earliest collaborator's, German noise innovator Blixa Bargeld. Bargeld has a lot of interesting things to say about the guitar, and it made me think about teaching, because I'm an education nerd and I find connections to teaching in everything. The below link goes into my connections in some detail, but I think anchor deletes posts after 24 hours and I wanted to try to write about it too. So listen if the link is still active. Otherwise, read on, MacDuff.



Here's the section in question-

When conventional instruments were used they were radically changed - guitars were placed on the floor and played with bows or electric razors. As Bargled told Johnson, such music could only be played by someone who hated the guitar; or, at least, hated what most musicians play on the guitar. "I thought it was a good decision to play guitar because I claimed my hatred for playing guitar in several interviews...It's probably good to play an instrument out of hatred of what other people do with it rather than play..."

However, there was more to Bargeld's playing than simple hatred. He told Guitarist magazine in 1997 that he wanted to find a way into playing guitar without playing guitar. "To me playing any instrument is a thinking process...I'd consider myself more like a singer. I come up with an idea for what to play on the guitar due to the value of how much sense it makes in a singing context.
 Bargeld, in other words, didn't simply approach the guitar the way the Barbarian hordes approached Rome. His function in the Bad Seeds was to provide something more subtle - a nagging sense of sonic disturbance."

There's so much in there that speaks to the way I approach education in all facets. Look at the first paragraph, he's saying that he hates the way other people play guitar, and that drives him to do something wildly out of the ordinary, something destructive and dissonant, with the instrument. 

Now think about how teachers use their textbooks. Or their Chromebooks. Or run edchats. Or write. Or even just how they teach. When I see people doing something badly- or it doesn't even have to be badly, it might be objectively well done, but boring or reductive or the same old thing- it makes me want to do the thing, but do it better and differently. It motivates me to try and find a way to break the form. Do I? I dunno. I probably just make a mess a lot of the time. But breaking things makes messes. I'm sure that a lot of guitar people listen to the way Bargeld plays and dismiss it as noise. I realize that I'm dangerously close to comparing myself to someone I'd happily call a musical genius (or at least a musical madman), but it's more about connecting him to teaching than comparing myself to him.

How often have you looked at a bad administrator and, even just for a moment, thought, "I'm going to go back to college, get my Masters in administration, and become a principal, just to show you how badly you suck at it and how it could be done so much better"? How many professional developments have you sat in that made you want to gently pull the presenter to the side, sit them down, and then finish their session yourself? If you answer, "Never, nope,not even once," to those then you are infinitely less judgmental than I am. But don't those bad PDs stack up? How many bad sessions can a teacher sit in before you have to go Ivan Drago on the whole system and say, "I must break you."

What about all the other tools of our trade? Yes, textbooks can suck. But don't throw them out. Break them. Turn them inside out. Find a way to use the tool- the instrument, if you will- in a way that sings for you and your students. 

Ah, there's a different between what Bargeld was doing and what we do. The Bad Seeds grew out of The Birthday Party, a post-punk band Bargeld wasn't a part of but loved, and who made a career out of antagonizing and attacking the audience. Not something we can do in our classrooms, though I'd love to see a professional development leader try to do it. In fact, I try to do it in my own way. Find ways to push the envelope. 

This brings us to the second part of the selection, which can be summed up in the final words, "a nagging sense of sonic disturbance." This is something education should aspire to. You want to talk about change agents and getting outside your comfort zone and growing by risk taking? What you're talking about is creating a nagging sense of sonic disturbance. Slipping inside the groove of education and vibrating just out of sync, slightly out of tune, but still in a way that enhances the overall effort. Make education more interesting by creating friction. 

But create it in an intelligent way. I'm not about to go charging around, crashing through walls and breaking things for the sake of breaking them, as fun as that is. That's mindless and it's just as easy as following the song exactly. Anarchy is easy. It's much harder to be smart about the chaos, to strike a tone that rings out but still rings true. 

I think we can learn a lot from Blixa Bargeld's guitar playing. If we're serious about changing education, about shaking up the status quo, then we need to be looking at the people who actually do that for inspiration. 

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written two books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher and THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome). I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.

Lecture is Bad...Right?

I'm at ISTE17, a giant edtech conference/sales pitch. A buddy and very smart human I know named Don Wettrick turned me on to this new mini-podcasting app called Anchor. So I decided to try it out.

My first mini-cast is ruminations on the nature of lecture, and whether it's really as bad as we make it out to be.

*EDIT- Turns out these only last for 24 hours, so if you didn't listen before I guess it's gone*

Battle of the Disney Non-Princesses: Judy Hopps v Moana

*I know this is a teaching blog. This particular post will have nothing to do with teaching. Why? Because it's mid-June and this sounded like fun.

ZOOTOPIA and MOANA are two of Disney's most recent films, and two of the company's best. Both are funny, feature fully-fleshed out characters, tell engaging stories, and have leads that don't fit into the traditional Disney Princess archetype. But between Judy Hopps and Moana, who's the better character? Let's break it down and find out who the Best Disney Non-Princess* really is.

Getting Their Start
Moana yearns to leave her island even before she realizes that she has to in order to save the world. She's never been beyond the reef, never sailed, and only knew what lay out there through stories told by her grandmother. Encouraged by the ocean itself, Moana toddles to the water every chance she gets. She's motivated by discontent and a rebellious streak at first, and later through a sense of duty.

Judy Hopps wants to be the first prey-species police officer in the biggest city in the world. She has wanted this her whole life, and everything she's ever done has been pointed towards accomplishing this goal. She has only wanted to help people and stand up for the little guy. How often does a person say what they want to be in elementary school and then follow through? She knew herself well from an early age.

Edge- Judy Hopps. Judy knew what she wanted from the beginning and did everything she could to achieve her dream. While Moana eventually came to her mission's true purpose, Judy's motivation was always pure altruism.

Degree of Mission Difficulty
Moana has to sail across an ocean, capture a demigod, defeat two other unexpected monsters along the way, defeat a supernatural being, and save the entire world. She's never sailed before, she has no real way to convince Maui to do anything, and she's a mortal in the realm of gods and monsters.

Judy Hopps wants to be a cop. She gets to go to cop school. She's trained by a polar bear who's a hardcase, but who wants her to do well. She goes into her mission as well prepared as a bunny could be. While her original mission is to hand out parking tickets, she's soon thrust into a web of deceit and corruption that threatens the tenuous fabric of the society in which she lives. She has to save the day in a small time period with no official resources.

Advantage- Moana. Come on. Yeah, the ocean helps her, but she doesn't even know how to make a canoe go when she sets out. Judy gets all the training in the world. Judy has to fight a savage jaguar and an angry sheep. Moana fights a billion coconuts, a giant crab, and a lava monster.

Companion
Moana's companion is a demigod who has no interest in helping her. All Maui wants is to get his hook back, be magic, be awesome, be adored. He's more powerful than her, and has all the information she needs to be successful. Without the help of the ocean, he could leave her at any turn and there's nothing she could do about it. His arc isn't complete until he swoops in, Han Solo-like, in the final confrontation, sacrificing his hook, his magic, and maybe himself in the process. He has a song that will be stuck in your head for the next three days. You're welcome.

Judy Hopps' companion is a fox who has no interest in helping her at all. All Nick wants to do is run his hustles, not work to hard, and have a good time. He knows his way around the city better than her, and tries to take advantage of her naivete. Judy out-thinks Nick and hustles him into helping her. His arc lets him find his way to her way of thinking on screen, through her caring and example. He rejects her not to save himself, but because he feels mistreated by her, and rightly. He has to welcome her back and they plan together to solve the final problem. In the end he too becomes a cop.

Advantage- Judy and Nick. Both Nick and Maui are selfish to start, but Nick's evolution is clearer and a clearer result of Judy's influence. Also, once the pen recording isn't held over Nick's head he sticks around. Maui constantly tries to ditch Moana and uses her as bait at one point. Nick has the better arc and is a better companion.

Other Supporting Characters
Moana travels with a chicken too dumb to live, the ocean, and has the most adorable pig you've ever seen.

Judy's world is full of colorful animals. A sloth named Flash, a fat cheetah, a nudist yak, a mole Godfather.

Advantage- Moana. Hehe eats two different rocks, can't eat food given to him, and manages to frustrate the ocean. Hehe is the coolest chicken ever.

Idris Elba
MOANA does not have Idris Elba in it.

ZOOTOPIA has Idris Elba in it.

Advantage- ZOOTOPIA and Judy Hopps

The Rock
MOANA has The Rock in it.

ZOOTOPIA does not have The Rock in it.

Advantage- MOANA and Moana

Drive
Moana is forced to do something no one from her island has done in memory. She does it without training, and fighting a demigod the whole way. She fights through storms and learns on the go. She's inspired by her ancestors and Lin-Manuel Miranda. She, in turn, inspires a demigod and her entire village.

Judy Hopps overcomes everyone in her life telling her she can't be a cop, a bunny has never been a cop, she'll be nothing but a carrot farmer. Even when given no resources she finds a way to hustle and think her way around problems.

Advantage- Moana because seriously, she literally doesn't know what she's doing and does it anyway.

Refusal of the Call

Moana at her weakest point, when she finally gives up her quest, is after a crushing defeat and being abandoned by the one other person who can help her. She asks the ocean to choose another, and comes around after being visited by her grandmother's spirit. This moment is touching and beautiful and shows the power of love and family and how it can inspire. She goes on without Maui.

Judy Hopps voluntarily leaves the ZPD when she sees that her good intentions lead to terrible outcomes for the very people she was trying to protect, coupled with being confronted with her own biases. She runs from the world, hiding at home, leaving her task incomplete. A chance encounter with a former bully helps her solve the case, return to Zootopia to find Nick, and save the day.

Advantage- Judy Hopps. There will be flack for this choice, but as touching as Moana's moment is, Judy's comes from within and helps her grow as a person because not only does she have to solve the case but she also has to admit she's wrong to Nick. Judy screws up big time, is forced to confront her ignorance, and move past it. Reflection like that is harder than realizing you've got to face a lava monster.

Humor
Moana's funniest line is when she shouts at the ocean, "Fish pee in you! All day!"

Judy's funniest line is when she says, "I mean, I am just a dumb bunny, but we are good at multiplying."

Advantage- Judy Hopps. ZOOTOPIA is a riot. MOANA has its moments, but it's nothing compared to Judy keeping it together in a nudist colony, Chief Bogo dancing in his chair to his Gazelle app, an extended Godfather riff in the middle of a children's movie, or, "Blood blood blood and death."

Song
Moana's theme is How Far I'll Go. It's a mission statement and a beautiful sequence in the film that lays out everything we need to know about the character. And did I mention it's beautifully animated and performed?

Judy's theme is Try Everything. It lays out Judy's character. It plays over a wonderful sequence that introduces us to the variety of the world.

Advantage- Moana. Duh. This one isn't even fair. Try Everything is fine, it's catchy, it's got a good message. But it's up against a breathtaking moment, one of the most gorgeous two and a half minutes ever animated. In fact, here, watch it again.



See? No contest.

Destiny
Moana is not a Chosen One. The ocean does not choose her because it's her destiny. It chooses her because she saves a turtle over grabbing the shell. She's doing what she's doing because it needs to be done.

Judy Hopps is not a Chosen One. The Great Bunny never comes down to her and anoints the rabbit that changes the world. She's doing what she's doing because it needs to be done.

 Advantage- TIE. Chosen One stories are boring and played out. It's not interesting when someone is told they are great. It's interesting when someone chooses to be great. Moana and Judy both choose their paths no matter what obstacles, starting with their parents, are in front of them.

CONCLUSION
Moana takes the advantage in six of the categories.

Judy Hopps takes the advantage in six of the categories.

MOANA and ZOOTOPIA are two of the most important, empowering movies we've had in a long time. Strong female leads taking the audience through great stories and tackling a wide range of issues that may or may not be under the surface. How can you choose between Moana and Judy Hopps? Let's celebrate the world they are trying to bring about.

*Yes, Moana is technically the daughter of the Chief and therefore could be called a princess, but when Maui calls her one she denies it. Plus, she's still a non-traditional example of a Disney princess. 

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written two books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher and THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome). I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.

How to Train a Student Teacher

People often say to me, "Doug, you are extremely handsome and modest. Also, you are a fantastic mentor teacher to the student teachers lucky enough to work in your classroom. How do you do it?" So, in the interest of helping the education public at large and with the help of my current student teacher, I made this handy instructional video.

You're welcome.