The Educator's Notebook

“Helping Our Students Identify As Generalists”
Middle Web - 1/19/21

“Generalists are not experts—but they are skilled at accessing the work of experts. They know how to look at an issue from multiple angles, sift good information from less good information, corroborate and compare what they find.”
Social-Psychological Interventions In Education: They’re Not Magic
CSUN - 1/6/11

“Recent randomized experiments have found that seemingly “small” socialpsychological interventions in education—that is, brief exercises that target students’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in and about school—can lead to large gains in student achievement and sharply reduce achievement gaps even months and years later. These interventions do not teach students academic content but instead target students’ psychology, such as their beliefs that they have the potential to improve their intelligence or that they belong and are valued in school. “

"The Benefits Of Moderate Exercise”
New York Times - 1/20/21

“Taken as a whole, the results indicate that intervals and traditional exercise alter our bodies in divergent ways, and we may want to consider what we hope to achieve with exercise when choosing how best to exercise.”

Admit Your Mistakes. It’s Better For Everyone
Character Lab - 1/17/21

“Copping to previous mistakes makes you come across as more knowledgeable because others assume that you have since figured things out. It takes expertise, observers intuit, to realize that you used to lack it—and confidence in your new position to say it out loud.”

How We Understand History Differently (Via The Alamo)
San Antonio Report - 1/16/21

“The Battle of the Alamo exists as more than a historical event. It’s also a tool people use to justify the United States going to war, and has been for a long time. The Alamo is a story Texas has told to sort the good guys, who were the Anglo Texians, from the bad guys, or the Mexicans. What actually happened gets blown up by the story’s cultural payload, and historical literacy is the casualty.”
“We’re Not Really Strangers” - A Game To Bring People Together
YouTube - 7/2/20

“WNRS is a purpose driven card game all about creating meaningful connections. 3 levels of questions and wildcards that all you to deepen your existing relationships, and create new ones.”
On The Misunderstood Context Of MLK And The “I Have A Dream” Speech
The Nation - 8/14/13

“Perhaps the best way to comprehend how King’s speech is understood today is to consider the radical transformation of attitudes toward the man who delivered it. Before his death, King was well on the way to being a pariah. In 1966, twice as many Americans had an unfavorable opinion of him as a favorable one… But in thirty years he went from ignominy to icon.”

On Amanda Gorman’s Writing And Performance
CNBC - 1/21/21

“I close my eyes and I say, ‘I am the daughter of Black writers. We are descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.’”
Lesson Plan Options For Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”
New York Times - 1/20/21

“In this lesson, students learn about the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history and consider her work as part of a tradition of occasional poetry.”
More Lesson Plan Options For Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”
PBS - 1/19/21

“Students will be able to… Write a reply or response in the spirit of Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb.” Draw connections between the moment in history, the poet’s messages and students’ own lives.”

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