A Simple Template to What Students CRAVE
I’ve been watching celebrities who’ve made their way onto center stage of the media and marketplace. The ones who’ve captured the attention of America, especially the emerging generation, are ones who don’t merely imitate what others are doing and do it better, but who begin a whole new way of doing something. They are, in fact, leaders. As I study
How to Help Your Team Bond Quickly
They made it look so easy. I am speaking of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic last month. Thirty-four guys from different professional teams got together to play against the world’s best baseball teams—and they won it all. How could such a diverse group that played together less than three weeks become such a deeply-bonded team? Many of them were
Five Ideas to Overcome Short-Attention Spans in Students
Recently, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league is considering speeding up their basketball games. Why? They realize people’s attention spans are shorter today. He’s right. TIME magazine reports, “The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects
Three Phases that Make Learning Stick: Podcast #45
Today, I’m excited to share with you a conversation with Dr. Britt Andreatta. Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader, author, and speaker on learning and leadership. She will also be a speaker at our upcoming National Leadership Forum 2017. Here are some highlights from our conversation. Tim Elmore: In your first book, Wired to Grow, you explore the brain science of learning. So
The Number One Killer of Productivity
If I were to ask you: What is the top killer of productivity in a work environment? What would you say? If I asked you: What is the chief distraction keeping students from focusing on their studies in school? What would you say? How about if I asked you: What is your number one hindrance distracting you from getting things done each
Take Time to Dig into What’s Inside Students
Archaeologists working in Mosul, Iraq have unexpectedly discovered an amazing palace that was built in 600 BC, underneath the rubble of a shrine. The pristine palace is likely 2,700 years old and has resided beneath the surface of current buildings and shrines located in Mosul, according to a report in The Telegraph. The palace could shed light on the world’s first empire. And until
How to Help Teens Through Emotional Times
Let me begin this blog with a brash, even stark observation: We live in a very emotional time period. Not only are adults divided over our nation’s politics right now, expressing volatile emotions, but our kids are navigating extreme emotions at a high level. Students often find it difficult to negotiate the alarming amount of information streaming at them, to navigate the connections
Eight Steps to Foster Civil Discourse on Controversial Issues
A man in Shaanxi, China, recently learned that the object he'd been using to crack walnuts for the last 25 years was a live hand grenade. Uh oh. I think we’re experiencing a similar emotional grenade on our school campuses. There’s lots of talk today, both in K-12 and higher education, about civic readiness. This is, of course, nothing new. Students have
Parents: Get Off Your Phone
Last year, my colleague, Andrew McPeak, hosted several focus groups made up of middle school and early high school students. This was done as research for the book, Marching Off the Map, which will be released later this year. In the first focus group, a young teenage girl said something that gave us pause. She said, “I never talk to my
What Servant Leadership Is Really About
Servant-leadership is a buzzword today, but it has been around for centuries. Thanks to the work of Robert Greenleaf and his Center for Servant Leadership, schools and organizations worldwide have bought into the notion that leadership is first about service—not about power. I completely agree. But while its popularity is on the rise, its practice remains challenging for some students. Depending
Why Kids Need to Take Risks & How to Encourage Them
Last year, I wrote about how American young adults are among the most risk-averse population our country has ever produced. It was not meant to be an insult. It was meant to explain why so many take Mom to a job interview, move home after college or are afraid to pursue other appropriate endeavors as young professionals. If they are
How to Get the Effort You Want From Your Students
The toughest moment for any educator, coach, leader or parent is when we need to offer tough feedback to a student. Author Daniel Coyle reminds us—if you do it right, you can get the best response from those kids. Do it wrong and it can backfire. I will never forget learning a fundamental lesson about feedback while teaching a class of
The Dangers of Telling a Child: You’re Special
I met a woman recently whose life almost completely revolved around her son. She was a proud parent and decided, like millions of American moms and dads, to take her job as a mom very seriously. She made a faulty assumption, however. Because her child meant everything to her, she sent constant signals to him that he was the center of her
Three Ways to Leverage Personalized Learning for Students
Last month, a video of a teacher greeting his North Carolina students went viral. It was shown on morning TV shows as well as on social media. Mr. Barry White, Jr. literally stands outside his 5th grade classroom in Charlotte, and offers a unique gesture for greeting each of his students. Call it a glorified “high five” but all students are