TRACY ANN CLARK, LLC
BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA

Willpower is a finite resource. This is a key to why morning routines matter so much. Don’t waste your creative juices and willpower on email or other mundane tasks. The limits of willpower also helps explain why reverting to negative habits often occurs when people are under the influence of something or tired. Keep your willpower tank in check and full, especially when you know you will need it. Michael Phelps visualized swimming the perfect race so habitually that winning became a natural extension of his preparation. Tony Dungy built habits so ingrained in his players that they became truly automatic. Players on the other teams couldn’t keep up because they had to think as the ball was snapped, something Dungy’s players were able to bypass once the habit had taken over. I remember a similar point made in Malcolm Gladwell’s, Willpower is a finite resource. This is a key to why morning routines matter so much. Don’t waste your creative juices and willpower on email or other mundane tasks. The limits of willpower also helps explain why reverting to negative habits often occurs when people are under the influence of something or tired. Keep your willpower tank in check and full, especially when you know you will need it. Michael Phelps visualized swimming the perfect race so habitually that winning became a natural extension of his preparation. Tony Dungy built habits so ingrained in his players that they became truly automatic. Players on the other teams couldn’t keep up because they had to think as the ball was snapped, something Dungy’s players were able to bypass once the habit had taken over. I remember a similar point made in Malcolm Gladwell’s, Willpower is a finite resource. This is a key to why morning routines matter so much. Don’t waste your creative juices and willpower on email or other mundane tasks. The limits of willpower also helps explain why reverting to negative habits often occurs when people are under the influence of something or tired. Keep your willpower tank in check and full, especially when you know you will need it. Michael Phelps visualized swimming the perfect race so habitually that winning became a natural extension of his preparation. Tony Dungy built habits so ingrained in his players that they became truly automatic. Players on the other teams couldn’t keep up because they had to think as the ball was snapped, something Dungy’s players were able to bypass once the habit had taken over. I remember a similar point made in Malcolm Gladwell’s, How about a moment to decompress before after school PD? While we are at it, can we all agree to avoid PD right before spring break? Right after a big standardized test (as in the afternoon after actively monitoring a high stakes test)? I know, I didn’t think I had to voice that as a request either, but that one is a true story. It is more than your proximity, although that can be helpful for determined distractors. We want your mind. We want you to model, as Ron Ritchhart says, “ on your campus. Back us up (if we deserve to be backed up), provide context for why you brought us in, make connections, and set the expectations for the rest of the group to make the most of our time together. We want to be an extension of your team, your thought partners, your collaborators, but primarily we want to support the growth of your team. We are driven by impact and we want to make lots of it. When we focus on empowering you and your team we know at some point we may work ourselves out of a job in your district, but shouldn’t that be a goal on some level? Help us look for opportunities to develop capacities over focusing on deficits. I am still at a loss for why so many learning opportunities for educators are designed to be sit and get. We know better. People learn by creating, doing, playing, struggling, persevering. Period. provide intellectual stimulation and fulfillment and we might end up losing anyone who craves that. One size does not fit all, and just changing that title slide does not count as customization. Sometimes you do have to reinvent the wheel, when the vehicle requires it. Business folks may ask how we can scale such customization. We are more interested in teacher development and inspiration than a perfectly replicable business model. Where can we find those little bits of time and opportunities to build up our educators? Help us model the posture of experimentation by both encouraging and supporting our desire to try new things. We will not stumble upon innovation if we just keep doing the same things. Let’s fight the status quo, design professional learning where teachers don’t even think of bringing papers to grade and laminate to cut, learning where teachers can explore, create, and find meaning that impacts their students and ignites their desire to grow.