Roxanna Elden's Blog, page 4

Using Alcohol to Get to Sleep is Not Great for Your Teaching (Or Your Sleep!)

“The reason you’re waking up in the middle of the night is the second glass of wine.” -Nora Ephron, in the essay What I Wish I’d Known from the book I Feel Bad About My Neck. There are lots of jokes about how seemingly-wholesome activities, like teaching and parenting, can drive people to drink. Bring... Read more »

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How Adam Grant’s Concept of “Give and Take” Plays Out in the Teaching Workplace

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant has a wonderful book called Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. This concept often makes some level of intuitive sense as soon as you hear it, but there’s more to the concept, and I highly recommend Grant’s 14-minute TED talk: Are you a giver or a taker? The... Read more »

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3 Toxic Teacher To-Do List Mistakes

Staring at an infinite to-do list can take a toll on your motivation. But I don’t have to tell you that. Here are a few sticking points that might be making your list unmanageable. Plus, how to get (closer to) a list of things that are actually doable—and then done. Problem #1: Uncross-off-able tasks are... Read more »

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Phone Appointments on Short Notice (Approval Required)

Sometimes, you need to talk to someone now—or as close to now as possible. While I can’t always guarantee an immediate session, I try to accommodate these whenever I can. You can book as little as 15 minutes in advance, and the price is the same as a regular session. However, the bookings are by... Read more »

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Free Initial Consultation

See Me After Class Office Hours are 45-minute, confidential Zoom or phone sessions tailored to any teaching-related topic you want to talk about. They’re a chance to receive individualized feedback from someone who has spent nearly two decades cutting through clichés about teaching to offer honesty, nuance, and practical advice. If you’ve never booked a... Read more »

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The One Piece of Advice I’d Give to Almost Any Teacher

Often, interviews about my books, or about working one-on-one with teachers, will end a question something like this: “So, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give to any teacher?” It sounds like a deceptively simple question—something that might lead to an inspirational cliche or a long, thoughtful pause followed by, “Well. . . it... Read more »

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It’s Not Always “Inspiration O’clock”

Two of the most finite resources in education are teachers’ time and energy. It’s always helpful to keep this in mind when deciding how much time and energy to budget for a task. But that’s just part of the story. It’s also important to note that not all time is equally valuable. Each week, there are... Read more »

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How Teachers Can Avoid the “Compare and Despair” Trap

There are some intuitive reasons why we’ve evolved to judge ourselves in comparison to others. Competitiveness, self-criticism, and envy are universal human tendencies that can be motivating in the right amounts. Other times, comparing ourselves to others makes us feel so unlikely to catch up that we might as well just shut down. A modern... Read more »

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Thick Skin: Do Teachers Really Have it? And How Can You Get It?

There is an idea out there that being a teacher takes “thick skin.” This is one of those characteristics people seem to assign to teachers as a group, right up there with patient, or obsessed with color-coded folders, or interested in the strong opinions of people who have never taught but think they would be great at it. Sometimes,... Read more »

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Classroom Activities That May Require Additional Guidelines

How should students act during an academic debate? What are the expectations for presentations? How do you make sure the whole “group” actually “works” during group work? These are probably not questions you have to answer every day.As a result, they’re probably not part of the classroom rules posted on your wall. They may not... Read more »

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