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A friend of mine told me about a conversation with a business coach she had been considering working with.
The coach said to her, “I can’t believe in you more than you believe in yourself.”
Which seemed reasonable, until my friend realized that that’s actually what was seeking to hire a coach to do.
Read MoreAs a teacher, there’s a moment I’m always waiting for. Before this moment, we’re just going through the motions. After this moment, everything changes.
It’s when my student says to me, “I don’t really understand this. Can you help me?”
When I consider the circumstances in a typical school classroom, I appreciate just how big a deal it is for a student to be able to take this step.
Many of us have been in classes so big or intimidating that we don’t want to ask a question. We figure everyone else probably gets it and we’ll be holding everyone up.
Read MoreWho knows how exhausted this parent was or how many flights he and his toddler had been on that day.
However, it’s likely that he was no more exhausted than any other parent of a toddler. Jet lag is a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the intensity of life with a tiny, strong-willed person who wants to do everything.
The two of them were sitting together on the plane when he went to unzip her jacket.
“NO!” she said loudly. “ME DO!”
Read MoreTeachers my have a reputation for torturing students, but many students do just fine torturing themselves.
Underlying many of our most painful experiences in growth and learning is an unnecessary belief that, once released, opens up all kinds of possibilities.
Often unstated by adults because it might be buried a bit deeper, we can count on kids to express this belief right out loud, which helps them get over it faster.
Read More“The bottom of the nose belongs down here, and the eyebrows should hit here. You can improve the perspective on the house in the background by incorporating these lines. Also, why is the sky a strip of blue at the top?”
We know that there are developmental stages that children’s artwork goes through as they learn, so we don’t expect kids to draw like adult professionals. Dena Luchsinger makes the case that it’s just as unhelpful to a growing writer to point out all of their mistakes.
Read MoreAs a freshman voice student, I was in trouble: I was supposed to sing opera, which I was terrible at.
My first teacher was an older man with a brisk, condescending demeanor. Our lessons together were bearable, but something was missing. By January or so, I didn’t feel that I had made a lot of improvement, and I’m sure he felt the same way.
One day, I asked him, “Do you believe that anyone can learn to sing?”
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