Do Yourself Proud

The Power of Novelty The best thoughts come at the most unexpected times. On the drive to Wednesday night soccer practice, my 13-year-old son started to tell me about how the drive had him thinking about his science class and the things they were learning.   “Like right now, I’m thinking about inertia.” No, this is not about to turn into a lesson on Newton’s Laws, and all the things that you have long since forgotten from your own science background. And, YES!   This did quickly become a lesson from me to my son about brain science, pedagogy, and life.   Poor kid.   He never stood a chance! After we clarified the meaning of inertia (and he reminded me about the importance of “wait time”… he got the meaning of inertia on his own, but I bit through my tongue for at least 3-4 minutes before it happened), I tried to explain to him how adults use the word inertia in colloquialisms.   “Some guy is sitting on the couch watching ...

“One of the fastest ways to make a kid lose the passion for anything is not getting them involved,” says two-time USA Hockey Olympian Guy Gosselin. If you want an athlete to stay engaged in practice, they need to get a lot of touches.  "Touches", for those less than athletically inclined out there, refers to contact with the ball/puck/whatever.  You need to scoop a grounder, take a face off, catch a pass, throw a pass, rip a shot, save a shot.  You need the ball/puck/thing around you to stay engaged. In the classroom, we see the same thing.  The traditional "direct instruction" lecture, where I stand in the front of the room and grace my students with a 45-minute monologue that demonstrates my mastery of the content yields very few touches.  Students sit in a passive state.  Only the most motivated will stay engaged and learn. How important is it to give your students touches?  Again, let's frame it in the context of sports: ...

This video is the follow-up to the original 60 Seconds to Scholarship. In this clip, you will be introduced to how this timer app can increase your productivity. Leave a comment and let me know what you think! CK

Recently I was asked to schedule a conference with my son’s soccer coach.   Much like the conferences I had just attended at his school, it was to include the coach, my son, and his parents.   We would review his progress, listen to any comments or feedback from my son, and set some goals for his future growth. A little background:   It’s a travel team, which plays year round.   When he’s not playing the game himself, my son follows a team in the British Premier League with fervor.   Their crest decorates his room, adorns his clothing and school backpack, the their app is forever alerting him to their progress.   He even styles his hair in the fashion of the players he admires!   To be sure, he’s “all in”.   In the course of the discussion, the coach reveals that he intends to name my son as a captain of his team for the coming season.   My son, while quiet and reserved, is clearly stoked !   He dutifully sits through the rest o...

In my class, we spent the last few weeks learning about the concept of a "personal brand".  Students have gone through a variety of lessons and exercises designed to help them come to a greater realization of what attributes they possess as a student and a member of this community, and how to translate that into an intention about their future.  Just to make the context clear, these are high school students at a school with a college preparatory curriculum. One of the activities was borrowed from the business world, asking students to perform a gap analysis.  In our version of gap analysis, students were asked to come up with five words that describe themselves.  They had to also ask ten people that know them to supply them with five words that describe the student.  Finally, the student would compare their self-created "profile" to the 50 words supplied by their friends and family.  A high level of agreement between those two sources of information sugge...