One of the most severe things we can do to ourselves as teachers is to collect so much information, so many different strategies and activities, that we can't manage all of it. This is actually a form of self-harm. When

Robert sent me two takes on the Beatitudes, both of which I have published below. The first is a spoof, but the second is most wonderful, irrespective of whatever faith one might profess, or not profess. Truth is truth in

Brigitte's follow up meeting with her administrator was different than she thought it would be, for those who remember her comment here of a few weeks ago in which she felt that the kids "froze up" when an administrator walked in.

We didn't get a discussion going on Michael's blog post from Friday. However, we need to step up on the follow-up email below from Michael. I don't mean to demand responses here, but this is a serious situation. We just

I got this from Kate just now: Hey Ben, Happy Friday to you! I just had to share this home run moment that I had today. It's so great to have an outlet to share them with! I walked into my 3rd grade

Hi Ben, Hope your story, King of Pain (Vol. 2 Matava) goes well today. I like the way you hung in there on the quasi boring PQA yesterday. It wasn't very entertaining, but you kept the conversation going just fine and

The clip from this recent post about the great film Austin Powers really helps me: http://www.benslavic.com/blog/2011/10/24/if-you-get-observed/ It is about returning judgemental energy from observors. When I get observed now, I try so hard to just let my freak flag fly and to

It's just so very sad. We attend conferences, take vacation time to work on our craft, work late into the night, and here we are on the eve of our biggest week, the week we all finally get to meet