Hi friends,
Welcome to the maiden voyage of Etcetera, the mid-week email that contains little (hopefully) helpful morsels that you can use with your staff, share with a colleague, or simply enjoy on your own.
My two commitments are as follows:
I’ll never use AI to write my thoughts here. I feel like, too often these days, I’m simply scrolling through emails knowing that someone outsourced their thinking to a chatbot. I certainly use AI in my day-to-day, and to assist with things like Emailable PD, but I want to keep this mid-week check-in candid and informal. You’ll get unfiltered Mike, so beware. (The same goes for my intros on Saturday’s emails. No AI to be found there.)
If I found something useful, fun, or interesting, it’s fair game to share. I know not everyone shares my taste. If you at all feel like this is one more thing in your inbox, you can check your Substack preferences and unsubscribe from this section while remaining subscribed to the Weekly Inspo Vids Saturday newsletter.
Let’s get to it! Thanks for reading!
Mike
P.S. I hope the video works above. I was getting some weird errors with my test emails.
On Leadership
“My job is to always be opposite the moment.”
As an Aggie, I’m obviously biased, but this is a great clip on both a leader’s role in the moment and how no one can lift morale with a single speech or action. It takes building a culture.
On Nurturing Tiny Humans
Let’s make our kids dangerous
I have three boys, and I love this. I grew up in a Texas home that was about as classically “masculine” as it gets. Trucks in the driveway and guns locked up in the garage. Now I’ve got nothing against either, and I actually had a very non-toxic father. Still, I want to instill in my boys a greater measure of compassion, self-awareness, and vulnerability than I had as a kid. I want the same for my students.
On Classroom Management
Down the rabbit hole we go …
In my day-to-day search for videos that teachers can actually use, I stumbled upon Tyler Hester in the video below. It’s about seven minutes long, so you can watch a very short clip I made here, but I’ll make a quick caveat.
Now, my warning is this: Tyler talks about a lot of ideas that some might call punitive in our current landscape, like homework, detention, and the like. I don’t have as strong feelings about these concepts as some, but I can imagine he might update some of his ideas if he were making this video today (this video was uploaded 11 years ago).
The thing I love about this video, and specifically about the clip I shared above, is the connection between consequences, consistency, and students feeling safe and respected. As a teacher, I’m going to admit something that I’m not supposed to admit: I’m frequently too lazy to follow through. This is true of my parenting as well.
To be consistent is exhausting. But it’s critical. And students (and kids) internalize that they’re either worth the effort or they’re not. It’s maybe counterintuitive that consistent consequences communicate respect, but they absolutely do. And teachers I’ve coached often struggle to make that connection.
Interesting side note:
My judgmental side came out a bit when I Googled Tyler to see what he’s up to these days. Turns out he taught for just four years and then left for leadership positions in other areas, and now runs a PD company.
I often grow weary of that story. Teacher A is an all-star, a bit prone to self-promotion, and exits before year five to tell other teachers how it’s done. Pretty soon, they’ve been out of the classroom for twenty years, hopelessly disconnected from the real day-to-day in a building, yet make a living telling principals and teachers in the trenches how it’s done.
That was my judgmental side. My researcher side should’ve simply read the rest of his bio.
Tyler then went to Harvard for his doctorate, went back to the classroom before starting his current company, where he serves as the CEO while still serving as a part-time Vice Principal.
Well, I’ve been put in my place. Makes me want to chat with him more. Should I reach out?
Thanks for reading this first edition of Etcetera. I’ll keep at it as long as you’re reading (and when I have time).
Thanks, friends!
Mike
