By: Tim Elmore In 1990, I began using a metaphor to teach students how they could earn the right to influence others. This metaphor has now become common language among educators: a thermometer and a thermostat. I found that while students are both simultaneously, they also tend to be more of one than the other depending on their environment: Thermometers simply

By: Tim Elmore If you met Kayla, you wouldn’t know she was distraught. She smiles a lot. She dresses sharp. She makes A's and B's in school, and she’s got quite a following on Instagram. When I met her, I assumed she was on top of the world. I would’ve never predicted she was panicking every day. Her mother asked if I

By: Tim Elmore I recently spoke at the 2021 Cobb County Student Leadership Academy awards event. Students were present, often with their parents and teachers, to learn about leadership and be recognized for what they’d achieved beyond academics this year. Pope High School was one school that was highlighted. Student leaders at Pope had recognized how much their classmates struggled with school during

By: Nautrie Jones 100% Virtual. 100% In-Person Learning. Hybrid. Synchronous. Asynchronous. If you are in any field relating to education, it is likely that both you and your students are quite familiar with one or all of these terms. This past year has been a challenge for us all. Students have been pushed and pulled in many different ways. Teachers have been stretched and stressed, and,

By: Tim Elmore Last week, a dear friend of mine swore to me that anyone who celebrates Easter is cursed. Three weeks ago, I met someone who believes the world is flat and anyone who thinks otherwise has been duped by the government. In January, I spoke to a group of people who feel the attack on the Capitol in Washington

By: Grace Hooley I vividly remember the first time a teacher told me I was being too sensitive. It was sixth grade in Mrs. Troy’s social studies classroom, and we were talking about the Trail of Tears and The Native American Removal Act. As she talked about how these native people groups were brutally removed from their land, the reality of our

By: Andrew McPeak A few months back I had the pleasure of teaching three sessions at a district-wide conference for K-12 teachers. As a part of my presentation, I made a point to talk about why building Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills during the pandemic was one of the most important challenges we could take on as educators. After all,

By: Tim Elmore Although millions of teachers, students, and parents would say the abrupt transition to remote learning a year ago was problematic, many are now preparing for more of it going into the 2021-22 school year. According to journalist Benjamin Herold, “Many teachers hate it. Millions of parents find it exhausting. A growing body of evidence suggests it has contributed

By: Tim Elmore One fascinating study on the subject of compassion was conducted at Princeton Seminary in 1973. Graduate students who studied theology were asked if they were entering the ministry because of innate reasons (i.e., they cared for people) or for circumstantial reasons (i.e., their father was a minister). After the survey, each respondent was told to offer a Bible

By: Andrew McPeak You’ve probably had something like this happen in your classroom this year. You work hard to have fun with your students. You create interesting and fun assignments for them, and you think it’s going well. Then something happens. A student says something harsh like, “I hate this class,” or a parent contacts you to tell you that his

By: Tim Elmore Last fall, a group of high school freshmen sat in health class discussing personal hygiene. The subject was already deeply personal, but it became awkward when Erica failed to show social awareness. When Jacob was unable to hear a classmate’s comments, Erica reprimanded him, saying, “What are you, deaf? Pay attention!”  Erica had no idea that Jacob was, indeed,

By: Tim Elmore I remember it like it was yesterday. I met with three high school students following a major brawl after a Friday night football game. A group of students from each high school began trash-talking each other, and the clash got heated. Within moments, words were exchanged for fists. The fight required security guards, teachers, and parents to break

By: Tim Elmore I never thought I’d see this day. The government of the Solomon Islands, a nation of hundreds of individual islands in the South Pacific, is planning to ban the entire Facebook platform, ABC Australia reports. Yep — this is no joke. Facebook will be banned from an entire country. Why? you ask. Incivility. Bad behavior online. Cyber-bullying. Defamation of character.

By: Tim Elmore In times like these, we can all use some good news. This past year, 2020, was quite a year, complete with a pandemic, protests, political polarization, pay reductions, and panic attacks. A friend told me on November 1 (when we switched to standard time) that he didn’t set his clocks back. The last thing he needed, he said,

Today’s blog post is from Steve Moore. Steve is an author, speaker, and president of Growing Leaders. I came across an interesting letter written by a father on behalf of his discouraged son: Please forgive a father who is so bold as to turn to you…in the interest of his son. [He] is 22 years old… I can assure you that he

I made a discovery recently. The schools that experience the toughest challenges with a remote learning model (or even a hybrid schedule) are the ones that continue to push for keeping academic scores high, at the expense of everything else. I asked a teacher recently how her remote learning experience was going. She said:  “I’m exhausted. We’ve implemented the A/B model, and

For many years now, researchers in educational fields have been trying to understand the influence of technology in the classroom. Is it helping? Is it hurting? Should we be using it? Of course, all of the answers to these questions may not be moot. After all, technology isn't IN the classroom today, technology IS the classroom. Just a couple of weeks

I watched a revealing video made by Olivia, a freshman student from Toronto. It’s called “Numb,” and it’s just over three minutes long. It describes what life feels like for a kid who’s been forced to learn remotely. If you have three minutes, I encourage you to watch it here before reading my article below: Olivia (Liv) isn’t an unmotivated student.

If you’re like me, you’ve attended countless webinars on leading students during a pandemic. You’ve probably read so many articles on COVID-19 you feel like a cross between a therapist and a physician's assistant. You’ve likely been on video calls so much your eyes are blurry and you’ve contracted Irritable Zoom Syndrome. (Just a little humor there.) On top of that,

Chuck was a bully on my high school campus. Back in the day, everyone in our class dreaded encountering him. On a good day, he was merely rude or offensive. On a bad day, he’d be downright abusive or violent. Chuck came from a troubled background but knowing that didn’t change the way peers felt about him. The entire tone

Public education has been founded upon memorization and testing for over a century. While we all agree we must do more than drill our students to memorize curriculum, remembering information will always play a role in learning. Today, millions of teachers face an even more arduous task of doing all of this remotely. So, what can teachers do to help kids

I sat in a well-lit room, full of colorful posters on the walls. Twelve people from four generations sat in a circle. Our goal was to discuss how our world had changed over the decades and if we felt those changes made us better or worse. You can imagine our discussion was as colorful as the posters on the walls. It