Thrivapy: Live, Learn, Have Fun

Motivating students can be a difficult challenge for both parents and teachers.  There are certainly no shortage of resources available to help provide advice for how to address this challenge, but I would offer some additional insight into motivation that I learned from my days of coaching baseball. My observations are based on a few assumptions.  One assumption is that people are motivated by achievement and success.  When you think about it, this makes perfect sense.  I cannot imagine a person being motivated to continue to perform a task that they consistently fail to achieve an acceptable level of success. Another assumption is that people are most successful when they identify their strengths and challenges, and use their strengths to address their challenges.  In other words, when people are honest about their strengths and challenges, an opportunity to grow presents itself.  Once the challenge is accepted, playing to one’s strengths puts one in the best position to achieve a

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It is said that a company's best assets are its employees.  A reasonable association can be made that a school's best assets are its teachers.  Reflecting on this concept, I offer a slightly different assumption. A school's best assets are its well-developed teachers. My own personal observation is that on-site professional development often takes the form of pre-service and in-service days, a few classroom observations, and an end of the year summative review.  Budgets include line items for professional development which are spent on a small number of teachers who attend a few conferences each year concering topics of interest.  What I find missing are some important elements that take profesional development from personal development and use it to make a positive impact on students, families, and the school as a whole. A professional development plan needs to have goals that are aligned with the mission of the school.  These goals are met by putting the professional

National study links educational leadership to student achievement The story linked to above is a good read on a very comprehensive study into the links betwen leadership and student achievement. I am intersted in more of the research details and whether or not they only interviewed public school leaders. In my own reseach, I have found strong achievement in private schools as well, but little research into a link between private leadership and student achievement.

Well, here we go.  This initial post on The Art of Education explains the meaning behind "The Art of Education."  When I first began teaching and coaching, I had very little formal teacher training.  What I did have was a desire to do my best and an understanding that I was going to take responsibility for a group of students.  During that time, I began reading a number of books about leadership and strategic thinking.  One book that I read multiple times was The Art of War by Sun Tzu. The Art of War is considered by many to be one of the most influential collection of writings on military strategy and tactics.  While I did not consider teaching class the same as conducting warfare (though some teachers may argue that it is similar), reading  The Art of War  helped me reflect on how to take my responsibilities as an educator and apply a strategic approach to performing my job to the best of my ability. Today, I still recognize the benefits of a strategic approach to dev