Welcome to a blog dedicated to helping us connect to kids, and to all learners.

We all want kids to learn and to feel inspired. Ask them and they'll tell you: the surefire way to make elevated learning happen is to forge a meaningful human connection with them. Before we can address concepts such as math anxiety or other behavioral/learning/technological challenges we face, our foremost job is to connect to students as people. Then we all flourish.

These posts take a lot of time and effort to produce, thus they are not the most frequent in the history of blog-land. To receive new posts privately and securely to your email as soon as they're live, you're invited to join our mailing list at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

Some students think teachers are out to trick them. Wait, what?

Robert Ahdoot

Jan 22, 2019
4 min

Some students think teachers are out to trick them. Wait, what?

Fellow teachers, I invite you to try this quick and revealing poll with your students. Ask, “Raise your hand if you believe that at least some teachers intentionally try to trick you.” Then behold in horror as hands shoot for the sky. This may not happen everywhere. But it definitely happens. If you do see hands go up, you may hear comments such as, “Oh, you have no idea.” The saddest part about this discovery is that too many students have essentially equated instruction wit

163 views0 comments

Robert Ahdoot

Feb 2, 2018
4 min

It's time to let it go, part 3 of 3

This public breakup announcement was also published on ASCD Smartbrief Education, as were the last two installments. A teacher is never a giver of “truth”; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that the student must discover for himself. -- Bruce Lee I love this quote. It captures into words an educational practice I’ve gradually grown into over time and experience. That practice is basically to set my students up to not need me anymore, much like parents aim to do with their

178 views0 comments

Robert Ahdoot

Nov 22, 2017
4 min

It's time to let it go, part 2 of 3

This public breakup announcement was also published on ASCD Smartbrief Education, as were parts 1 and 3. There’s a parable of a small child watching her mother cook. Before placing a roast in the oven, the mom cuts off both ends and tosses them in the trash. The child asks, “Why do you cut off the ends and throw them away?” The mom replies, “I don’t know, I just learned that from my mother." The child then goes to her grandmother and asks her the same question. The grandma of

88 views0 comments

Robert Ahdoot

Oct 20, 2017
3 min

It's time to let it go, part 1 of 3

This public breakup announcement was also published on ASCD Smartbrief Education, as will the next two posts on this topic, in the next two months. Imagine that your academic crush is coming to town. You have followed her work for years; you’ve read her book; and, you can safely say that her work has made an indelible, positive impact on your life. You learn that this crush will be giving a talk at the local auditorium, so you quickly make your reservations and anticipate the

257 views0 comments