Ending a Teaching

A teacher has great power to demonstrate good endings, to give the student a way to transition from one path to another, one level to another, one teacher to another – or to no teacher.

Follow Through

The currency of trust is best served when we do more and promise less.

A Good Day to be Surprised

April first is a good day to consider the limitations of seriousness. Teachers, myself included, often take our work seriously in many ways, perhaps one or two ways more than we must. It is hard to stay serious without also falling into rigid thinking about the subject, the students, and oneself, and a [...]

Teacher Traps: When the Student Worships the Teacher

Teaching is a conversation. It occurs at many levels, and about many topics. What happens when the student’s part of this conversation turns to adoration and worship of the teacher? That is, what happens to the teacher?
Even the most integrated and balanced teacher can be caught off-guard by the attention of a [...]

The Student as Snapshot

To teach a student deeply we must study them as well. We develop in our minds composite pictures of who they are, what they can do, what they want, how they excel, what they are afraid of, where they stumble, and so on.
Humans do this well: we develop models — maps — about how things [...]

The Student as a Mirror

The moment you realize
your student’s issue
is a lot like yours
is a good moment

When it comes to deep work, our students are mirrors. In them we see our past stumbles, the traps we avoided, the ones we triggered. The harder work is to also see our current challenges.
If you can see nothing of yourself, [...]