In teaching, the details matter. When educators make small changes to their practice, they can reap big rewards . . . and produce big results.
Introduction: Why Small but Mighty?"You look so Zen," my colleague said as she walked up to me. It was a beautiful spring day, one of those rare gifts when the sky is pure blue, the sun shines, and a gentle breeze ruffles budding blossoms. My colleague was headed to her car to grab something she had left behind, and I was using a 15-minute break to get some fresh air, eat an apple, and clear my head. At her comment, I laughed. "Trust me, I'm not." "No, really," she insisted. "You always seem to keep calm, even when everyone around us might be losing it. Is that something you do on purpose?" As I paused to think about her question, I couldn't help but reflect on the hard work it took to keep things in perspective. At that point I was about 20 years into my career and was hitting the highest threshold of stress I'd ever experienced. Multiple factors played into that, but to condense them all, I had too many jobs to complete with not enough time. The term bandwidth was not yet in general use to describe any given person's capacity to accomplish something, but mine was stretched incredibly thin. My colleague might have thought that I was handling it all, but I was barely hanging on. There may be no formal studies to capture the proclivities of people who decide to become educators, but I would guess that most teachers probably lean more toward Type A than Type B personalities. It's hard to be laid-back when so many moving parts are in play at once: skillful lesson planning (often for multiple classes), effective instruction, thoughtful analysis of and reflection on student progress, and the ability to change course when things aren't working. Add to that the constant demands on time and wellness, and it can become overwhelming to manage a job that is highly unpredictable and changes from moment to moment. Even people who tend to be flexible can wind up succumbing to the multiple stressors that emerge in school buildings. It's important to keep an eye on the big picture of what matters most, especially when we consider where students need to wind up with their learning and what it will take to accomplish that growth. However, the tiny details of how we get there are just as vital a consideration. In classroom teaching, no detail is insignificant. Skillful teachers are highly attuned to the importance of reflective practice and how it affects their ability to teach similar content each year while making needed adjustments to instructional approaches that maximize student achievement. How is it possible to increase awareness of the small but mighty details that have a big impact on student growth? When we embrace the details of instruction with an approach that builds capacity over time, both teachers and students reap the benefits of habits over motivation. Many educators consider intrinsic motivation to be the gold standard for achievement, but it can be transient even in the most devoted people. That is why the small things we do every day by rote become our salvation during a rough patch or when we can't find enough mental energy for inspiration. Students with strong habits produce good results even when they're having a hard time, and the same holds true for adults. When my colleague observed what she called "Zen" behavior in my outward appearance, I was initially surprised. After all, my internal monologue wasn't nearly as relaxed at that time in my life as I would have wanted it to be. However, upon reflection, I realized that I was in the habit of doing tiny things each day to mitigate that high stress load. Getting outside for just a little bit of time was a big help, as it reminded me of the world beyond cinder block walls. I was insistent about having the first hour of the morning to myself to orient the day, drink my coffee, and get organized before colleagues and students arrived. At the end of the day, I turned off my phone an hour before bed and spent time with my family. Taken alone, these moves were nearly infinitesimal in their application, but together, they made living a more fulfilled personal and professional life possible. As nearly every teacher knows, achieving longevity in education is about embracing both the successes and the obstacles we encounter as part of a journey to growth. Teaching is a marathon rife with unpredictability and demand, and without much staying power. According to a Vox report, "Beginning teachers have among the highest rates of turnover of any group of teachers. Overall, more than 44 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years" (Cineas, 2022). To make it in the field of education past the time that so many teachers throw in the towel, it's essential to lean into the details that add up to success. The upcoming chapters explore a variety of moves and tools that may seem bite-sized and therefore insignificant on their own, but yield great power when implemented systematically and thoughtfully. To get a better sense of why small equals mighty, let's look at some of the theories that demonstrate the subtle influence of habits, brevity, and the wise advice that less is more. Habit StackingIn his bestselling book Atomic Habits, author James Clear (2018) writes, "It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis" (p. 15). This appropriately bite-sized statement aptly summarizes the idea behind the practice known as "habit stacking," which involves layering small habits on top of one another, one at a time, to produce enduring results. In education, teachers place a lot of understandable emphasis on finding effective ways to motivate students. Extrinsic motivators such as grades and reward systems do not generally have a profound or lasting impact on performance, and many students are not at all moved by such measures, even in the shorter term. Therefore, the phrase "intrinsic motivation" has come to express a coveted goal in teaching as we search for the key to unlocking a deeper sense of value for learning in our students. The problem is that even when teachers discover how to access intrinsic drive in students, it can be just as transient as extrinsic motivation. Suppose, for example, that a student is truly interested in becoming a better writer because she wants to be a journalist. Historically, she is high-performing and engaged in class. However, because of various life stressors and obstacles, she has become discouraged and begins to lag in her schoolwork, including her writing assignments. Her teachers observe this change and try to encourage her to recover her drive, but they are otherwise at a loss about what to do. This kind of situation is precisely where habits outdo motivation and are therefore a far more useful avenue to explore in teaching and learning. As Clear (2018) points out, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems" (p. 27). When we continuously rely on motivation to succeed, we are setting ourselves up for failure because it is too unreliable a factor in ultimate success. However, when we build careful habits over time, they become nearly automatic and are therefore much more effective. To illustrate this idea, consider a parent who wants to instill healthier eating habits in his children. Removing all processed snack foods overnight will likely result in an uprising, and no change will occur. However, a more measured approach could achieve this parent's goals gradually and effectively. Perhaps for one week, he might experiment with putting a fruit and vegetable plate on the table for the kids to snack on as he subtly drags his feet to get dinner on the table. With ready access to a choice of fresh produce, the children are likely to start picking at the plate within that first week. Then, the parent might put healthier snack choices in places within easy sight and reach of smaller bodies and push the less ideal choices a bit further out of the way. The subtle friction that occurs from the change in access would help the children automatically select whatever is more easily available. As the weeks progress, this parent can continue to layer on similar moves to change his children's dietary habits in ways that are as intentional as they are lasting. In education, a similar approach yields equally desired results. In the earlier example of the writing student who lost her motivation, she might be able to continue producing work if her teacher has implemented daily writing routines that do not require inspiration or even too much brain power. Instead, the goal behind such habits would be to write anything at all, with editing occurring later. With this "low floor, high ceiling" approach, students begin in accessible places and then move up toward the expected higher standard rather than constantly feeling as though they must do their best immediately and on demand. With habit stacking, small and mighty overrides big shifts in behavior. Clear (2018) affirms, "Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action" (p. 15). Instead, it is the smaller, daily habits that we engage in without much thought that produce desired results. Throughout this book, tools and strategies are shared that embrace this bite-sized approach to reaching the goal of consistent success with students. More than huge moves that are likely to cause disruption rather than meaningful change, the tiny details that influence teaching and learning have far greater importance and impact. BrevityNearly every day, many people feel like they're drowning in a rising tide of too much information. Thanks to the ubiquitous presence of connectivity via smartphones, smartwatches, and other forms of technology, life is dominated by the constant inundation of news, communications, and tasks. It's no wonder that health and wellness experts recommend that people limit time with devices and screens, and it's equally understandable that it's a struggle to let go of the addictive accessibility. In addition to the mental fatigue that results from constantly being in the loop, teachers deal with another layer of exhaustion: the fact that at work, being in front of students requires mentally or physically (and often both) keeping our brains and bodies set to the "on" switch. That is why, when new district or school initiatives are laid out in front of teaching staff, no matter how helpful or valid they may be, the first reaction is almost always a jaded "Please don't give us another thing to do." As author and marketing expert Joseph McCormack (2014) writes in Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, "The new brutal reality is that people are drowning in information. It floods them everywhere they go" (p. 14). If leaders do not step up and become more aware of this problem, McCormack argues, they will not be able to help their employees maintain focus on the most important priorities. Therefore, he says, change depends on action: "You have to put it in a smaller package and make it easier to consume and digest. You must boil it down and get to the point quickly, or be forgotten" (p. 22). For educators, actively practicing brevity can be challenging. So much pressure exists to "cover" a curriculum, creating the false impression that speed is more important than depth of understanding. Furthermore, every school day includes unpredictable situations that have to be quickly processed and handled, ideally in order of urgency and importance. When so much is flying at a person's head at once, figuring out how to get to the point feels like a nice idea that cannot possibly work in reality. However, for the sake of both learning and well-being, taking a pause in all but the most dire situations is a habit that leads to more effective practice. Suppose that on a challenging day with students, a mental to-do list keeps threatening a teacher's inner sense of calm with the despairing thought that nothing can be accomplished within the ideal time frame. In such instances, it is worth taking a few minutes after class to write out the list items that are most worrisome and then put a star next to the ones that are truly urgent. In most cases, it may feel uncomfortable to push many actions on that list to another time, but not impossible. Getting to the point of what needs to be done creates a far more tenable situation. In the rare event that all the items are still somehow urgent, then deeper questions must be asked about how much work is being externally imposed upon the teacher and how much involves a more intrinsic level of choice and a potential need to change behavior. Ultimately, cutting down the scope of practice on any given day has the opposite effect of what people assume will happen. Rather than making anyone less attentive or aware, applying more focus to fewer tasks creates a heightened level of efficacy. Just as weightlifters benefit more from completing five challenging bicep curls than by pushing too far, injuring themselves and ruining their form by doing 10 repetitions, embracing less to accomplish more holds great value in classrooms, for both teacher pedagogy and student growth. Less Is More"I'm never going to get through this," my friend said to me one day as we sat at a table together, grading papers. "What's that?" I asked him. In response, he showed me something I'd seen before and been privately concerned about: a to-do list that stretched several notebook pages long, marked up with asterisks and crowded notes in the margin. "It's impossible," he said, stating what was obvious. "I have at least 200 essays sitting on my desk right now that I collected weeks ago, and there are so many other assignments I'm also trying to grade. There's no way to catch up." I wasn't sure if my colleague was asking for advice or just venting, but his frustration level was high enough that I wanted to help. "How many assignments do you typically give students each week?" I asked. Without a word, he turned his laptop around so that I could see the student gradebook. As I looked, I thought at first that my eyes were deceiving me. We were only three weeks into the quarter, but there were enough entries on the screen to represent an entire marking period's worth of work. "How many assignments is that?" I asked. "Let me see," he said, squinting. "Looks like 36 in total. And I've only graded about half of those, maybe a little less. Lots of blank spots in there." Leaning in, I tried to get a firmer understanding of what was represented in the gradebook. "So you have some quizzes, a bunch of small activities, three essays, and two projects. What are the rest of these? What does 'GMP' stand for?" "Oh," he said, "that's grammar and mechanics practice. We do those every day, just for a few minutes at the start of class." "And you grade every single one?" "That's the idea," he said. "I'm not saying it happens." "The way I look at it, teaching is overwhelming enough. We don't need to up the ante. In my mind, it's not about the number of assignments we give or how many we grade. It's about how kids are spending their time. Depth over breadth." "I get that concept," he said, "but I've never understood what it looks like in reality." Looking at his pile of papers, his to-do list, and the gradebook once more, it dawned on me that to tell my friend to just stop doing so much was never going to be feasible. Instead, he would need to take some baby steps toward getting more out of doing less. "Do you want suggestions?" I asked. "Or maybe you want me to drop it? Either is fine; I promise I won't be offended." "No, please," he said, "I'll take any advice." "Maybe you can start small with just one little action. What gives you the most stress?" Without hesitation he said, "My grading, definitely." "OK," I said, "then the priority should be to get it more under control. Can you divide the pile into things that have to be graded without delay and assignments that might be able to wait or that are more expendable?" "Maybe," he said, "but I would feel bad about that. The kids gave me their work with the expectation that I would grade it." "Totally get it, but is it possible that trying to get it all done in a rush is doing them a disservice, rather than taking time to grade what's really important with more time and care?" He tilted his head to one side, considering. "I don't know." "Generally," I said, "kids aren't so much into us grading a ton of work. It's more that they want quick and clear feedback so that they can do well. We can't assess that way if we're overworked." "OK, I'm listening. So, how do I grade less?" "Let's start by making some piles," I said, pointing at the stack. To make a long story short, my friend and I worked for several months on gradually paring down his grading, from assigning less (a big challenge for someone who was used to partially using grading as a behavior management technique) to being more intentional about which assignments would be given only feedback and which would also include grades. At first it was difficult for him to let go of the habits that were trapping him in a ceaseless treadmill of work, but once he started seeing the benefits of another way, he was sold on the change. As McCormack (2014) shares, "When you are throwing things out, it may be hard to decide what goes—but keep in mind what people will really care about" (p. 36). Helping my friend manage a grading pile that had gotten far out of hand involved some difficult decisions. However, starting the ball rolling by doing less to achieve more saved his sanity—and perhaps his longevity in teaching. Similarly, teachers who seek to be effective at a demanding job that undergoes constant shifts must become comfortable with agility. Being nimble with instructional practice is an essential step in determining what is serving students and ourselves, and what might need to be jettisoned. Habit stacking, brevity, and the idea that less is more all add up to one bigger idea: small actions are mighty, and they produce results. In teaching, the details matter. To that end, the coming chapters are filled with strategies for applying small and mighty moves to teaching practice before, during, and after instruction, as well as the spaces in between when well-being and belonging become paramount to long-term success. Every figure and tool is designed for immediate, practical application in the classroom. To get the most out of this book, listening to your inner teaching voice is paramount. Certain ideas will fit more naturally into your existing practice, whereas others require more of a stretch. Starting with what is more familiar and gradually bridging toward new methods exemplifies the central message of this book: take one tiny aspect of practice, make an equally tiny change, and repeat. Keep going and keep changing. Only then will both you and your students get to experience the joy of what is truly possible in an ideal classroom space. Printed by for personal use only |
"You look so Zen," my colleague said as she walked up to me.
It was a beautiful spring day, one of those rare gifts when the sky is pure blue, the sun shines, and a gentle breeze ruffles budding blossoms. My colleague was headed to her car to grab something she had left behind, and I was using a 15-minute break to get some fresh air, eat an apple, and clear my head.
At her comment, I laughed. "Trust me, I'm not."
"No, really," she insisted. "You always seem to keep calm, even when everyone around us might be losing it. Is that something you do on purpose?"
As I paused to think about her question, I couldn't help but reflect on the hard work it took to keep things in perspective. At that point I was about 20 years into my career and was hitting the highest threshold of stress I'd ever experienced. Multiple factors played into that, but to condense them all, I had too many jobs to complete with not enough time. The term bandwidth was not yet in general use to describe any given person's capacity to accomplish something, but mine was stretched incredibly thin. My colleague might have thought that I was handling it all, but I was barely hanging on.
There may be no formal studies to capture the proclivities of people who decide to become educators, but I would guess that most teachers probably lean more toward Type A than Type B personalities. It's hard to be laid-back when so many moving parts are in play at once: skillful lesson planning (often for multiple classes), effective instruction, thoughtful analysis of and reflection on student progress, and the ability to change course when things aren't working. Add to that the constant demands on time and wellness, and it can become overwhelming to manage a job that is highly unpredictable and changes from moment to moment. Even people who tend to be flexible can wind up succumbing to the multiple stressors that emerge in school buildings.
It's important to keep an eye on the big picture of what matters most, especially when we consider where students need to wind up with their learning and what it will take to accomplish that growth. However, the tiny details of how we get there are just as vital a consideration. In classroom teaching, no detail is insignificant. Skillful teachers are highly attuned to the importance of reflective practice and how it affects their ability to teach similar content each year while making needed adjustments to instructional approaches that maximize student achievement. How is it possible to increase awareness of the small but mighty details that have a big impact on student growth?
When we embrace the details of instruction with an approach that builds capacity over time, both teachers and students reap the benefits of habits over motivation. Many educators consider intrinsic motivation to be the gold standard for achievement, but it can be transient even in the most devoted people. That is why the small things we do every day by rote become our salvation during a rough patch or when we can't find enough mental energy for inspiration. Students with strong habits produce good results even when they're having a hard time, and the same holds true for adults.
When my colleague observed what she called "Zen" behavior in my outward appearance, I was initially surprised. After all, my internal monologue wasn't nearly as relaxed at that time in my life as I would have wanted it to be. However, upon reflection, I realized that I was in the habit of doing tiny things each day to mitigate that high stress load. Getting outside for just a little bit of time was a big help, as it reminded me of the world beyond cinder block walls. I was insistent about having the first hour of the morning to myself to orient the day, drink my coffee, and get organized before colleagues and students arrived. At the end of the day, I turned off my phone an hour before bed and spent time with my family. Taken alone, these moves were nearly infinitesimal in their application, but together, they made living a more fulfilled personal and professional life possible.
As nearly every teacher knows, achieving longevity in education is about embracing both the successes and the obstacles we encounter as part of a journey to growth. Teaching is a marathon rife with unpredictability and demand, and without much staying power. According to a Vox report, "Beginning teachers have among the highest rates of turnover of any group of teachers. Overall, more than 44 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years" (Cineas, 2022). To make it in the field of education past the time that so many teachers throw in the towel, it's essential to lean into the details that add up to success.
The upcoming chapters explore a variety of moves and tools that may seem bite-sized and therefore insignificant on their own, but yield great power when implemented systematically and thoughtfully. To get a better sense of why small equals mighty, let's look at some of the theories that demonstrate the subtle influence of habits, brevity, and the wise advice that less is more.
In his bestselling book Atomic Habits, author James Clear (2018) writes, "It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis" (p. 15). This appropriately bite-sized statement aptly summarizes the idea behind the practice known as "habit stacking," which involves layering small habits on top of one another, one at a time, to produce enduring results.
In education, teachers place a lot of understandable emphasis on finding effective ways to motivate students. Extrinsic motivators such as grades and reward systems do not generally have a profound or lasting impact on performance, and many students are not at all moved by such measures, even in the shorter term. Therefore, the phrase "intrinsic motivation" has come to express a coveted goal in teaching as we search for the key to unlocking a deeper sense of value for learning in our students.
The problem is that even when teachers discover how to access intrinsic drive in students, it can be just as transient as extrinsic motivation. Suppose, for example, that a student is truly interested in becoming a better writer because she wants to be a journalist. Historically, she is high-performing and engaged in class. However, because of various life stressors and obstacles, she has become discouraged and begins to lag in her schoolwork, including her writing assignments. Her teachers observe this change and try to encourage her to recover her drive, but they are otherwise at a loss about what to do.
This kind of situation is precisely where habits outdo motivation and are therefore a far more useful avenue to explore in teaching and learning. As Clear (2018) points out, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems" (p. 27). When we continuously rely on motivation to succeed, we are setting ourselves up for failure because it is too unreliable a factor in ultimate success. However, when we build careful habits over time, they become nearly automatic and are therefore much more effective.
To illustrate this idea, consider a parent who wants to instill healthier eating habits in his children. Removing all processed snack foods overnight will likely result in an uprising, and no change will occur. However, a more measured approach could achieve this parent's goals gradually and effectively. Perhaps for one week, he might experiment with putting a fruit and vegetable plate on the table for the kids to snack on as he subtly drags his feet to get dinner on the table. With ready access to a choice of fresh produce, the children are likely to start picking at the plate within that first week. Then, the parent might put healthier snack choices in places within easy sight and reach of smaller bodies and push the less ideal choices a bit further out of the way. The subtle friction that occurs from the change in access would help the children automatically select whatever is more easily available. As the weeks progress, this parent can continue to layer on similar moves to change his children's dietary habits in ways that are as intentional as they are lasting.
In education, a similar approach yields equally desired results. In the earlier example of the writing student who lost her motivation, she might be able to continue producing work if her teacher has implemented daily writing routines that do not require inspiration or even too much brain power. Instead, the goal behind such habits would be to write anything at all, with editing occurring later. With this "low floor, high ceiling" approach, students begin in accessible places and then move up toward the expected higher standard rather than constantly feeling as though they must do their best immediately and on demand.
With habit stacking, small and mighty overrides big shifts in behavior. Clear (2018) affirms, "Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action" (p. 15). Instead, it is the smaller, daily habits that we engage in without much thought that produce desired results. Throughout this book, tools and strategies are shared that embrace this bite-sized approach to reaching the goal of consistent success with students. More than huge moves that are likely to cause disruption rather than meaningful change, the tiny details that influence teaching and learning have far greater importance and impact.
Nearly every day, many people feel like they're drowning in a rising tide of too much information. Thanks to the ubiquitous presence of connectivity via smartphones, smartwatches, and other forms of technology, life is dominated by the constant inundation of news, communications, and tasks. It's no wonder that health and wellness experts recommend that people limit time with devices and screens, and it's equally understandable that it's a struggle to let go of the addictive accessibility.
In addition to the mental fatigue that results from constantly being in the loop, teachers deal with another layer of exhaustion: the fact that at work, being in front of students requires mentally or physically (and often both) keeping our brains and bodies set to the "on" switch. That is why, when new district or school initiatives are laid out in front of teaching staff, no matter how helpful or valid they may be, the first reaction is almost always a jaded "Please don't give us another thing to do."
As author and marketing expert Joseph McCormack (2014) writes in Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, "The new brutal reality is that people are drowning in information. It floods them everywhere they go" (p. 14). If leaders do not step up and become more aware of this problem, McCormack argues, they will not be able to help their employees maintain focus on the most important priorities. Therefore, he says, change depends on action: "You have to put it in a smaller package and make it easier to consume and digest. You must boil it down and get to the point quickly, or be forgotten" (p. 22).
For educators, actively practicing brevity can be challenging. So much pressure exists to "cover" a curriculum, creating the false impression that speed is more important than depth of understanding. Furthermore, every school day includes unpredictable situations that have to be quickly processed and handled, ideally in order of urgency and importance. When so much is flying at a person's head at once, figuring out how to get to the point feels like a nice idea that cannot possibly work in reality.
However, for the sake of both learning and well-being, taking a pause in all but the most dire situations is a habit that leads to more effective practice. Suppose that on a challenging day with students, a mental to-do list keeps threatening a teacher's inner sense of calm with the despairing thought that nothing can be accomplished within the ideal time frame. In such instances, it is worth taking a few minutes after class to write out the list items that are most worrisome and then put a star next to the ones that are truly urgent. In most cases, it may feel uncomfortable to push many actions on that list to another time, but not impossible. Getting to the point of what needs to be done creates a far more tenable situation. In the rare event that all the items are still somehow urgent, then deeper questions must be asked about how much work is being externally imposed upon the teacher and how much involves a more intrinsic level of choice and a potential need to change behavior.
Ultimately, cutting down the scope of practice on any given day has the opposite effect of what people assume will happen. Rather than making anyone less attentive or aware, applying more focus to fewer tasks creates a heightened level of efficacy. Just as weightlifters benefit more from completing five challenging bicep curls than by pushing too far, injuring themselves and ruining their form by doing 10 repetitions, embracing less to accomplish more holds great value in classrooms, for both teacher pedagogy and student growth.
"I'm never going to get through this," my friend said to me one day as we sat at a table together, grading papers.
"What's that?" I asked him.
In response, he showed me something I'd seen before and been privately concerned about: a to-do list that stretched several notebook pages long, marked up with asterisks and crowded notes in the margin. "It's impossible," he said, stating what was obvious. "I have at least 200 essays sitting on my desk right now that I collected weeks ago, and there are so many other assignments I'm also trying to grade. There's no way to catch up."
I wasn't sure if my colleague was asking for advice or just venting, but his frustration level was high enough that I wanted to help. "How many assignments do you typically give students each week?" I asked.
Without a word, he turned his laptop around so that I could see the student gradebook. As I looked, I thought at first that my eyes were deceiving me. We were only three weeks into the quarter, but there were enough entries on the screen to represent an entire marking period's worth of work. "How many assignments is that?" I asked.
"Let me see," he said, squinting. "Looks like 36 in total. And I've only graded about half of those, maybe a little less. Lots of blank spots in there."
Leaning in, I tried to get a firmer understanding of what was represented in the gradebook. "So you have some quizzes, a bunch of small activities, three essays, and two projects. What are the rest of these? What does 'GMP' stand for?"
"Oh," he said, "that's grammar and mechanics practice. We do those every day, just for a few minutes at the start of class."
"And you grade every single one?"
"That's the idea," he said. "I'm not saying it happens."
"The way I look at it, teaching is overwhelming enough. We don't need to up the ante. In my mind, it's not about the number of assignments we give or how many we grade. It's about how kids are spending their time. Depth over breadth."
"I get that concept," he said, "but I've never understood what it looks like in reality."
Looking at his pile of papers, his to-do list, and the gradebook once more, it dawned on me that to tell my friend to just stop doing so much was never going to be feasible. Instead, he would need to take some baby steps toward getting more out of doing less.
"Do you want suggestions?" I asked. "Or maybe you want me to drop it? Either is fine; I promise I won't be offended."
"No, please," he said, "I'll take any advice."
"Maybe you can start small with just one little action. What gives you the most stress?"
Without hesitation he said, "My grading, definitely."
"OK," I said, "then the priority should be to get it more under control. Can you divide the pile into things that have to be graded without delay and assignments that might be able to wait or that are more expendable?"
"Maybe," he said, "but I would feel bad about that. The kids gave me their work with the expectation that I would grade it."
"Totally get it, but is it possible that trying to get it all done in a rush is doing them a disservice, rather than taking time to grade what's really important with more time and care?"
He tilted his head to one side, considering. "I don't know."
"Generally," I said, "kids aren't so much into us grading a ton of work. It's more that they want quick and clear feedback so that they can do well. We can't assess that way if we're overworked."
"OK, I'm listening. So, how do I grade less?"
"Let's start by making some piles," I said, pointing at the stack.
To make a long story short, my friend and I worked for several months on gradually paring down his grading, from assigning less (a big challenge for someone who was used to partially using grading as a behavior management technique) to being more intentional about which assignments would be given only feedback and which would also include grades. At first it was difficult for him to let go of the habits that were trapping him in a ceaseless treadmill of work, but once he started seeing the benefits of another way, he was sold on the change.
As McCormack (2014) shares, "When you are throwing things out, it may be hard to decide what goes—but keep in mind what people will really care about" (p. 36). Helping my friend manage a grading pile that had gotten far out of hand involved some difficult decisions. However, starting the ball rolling by doing less to achieve more saved his sanity—and perhaps his longevity in teaching. Similarly, teachers who seek to be effective at a demanding job that undergoes constant shifts must become comfortable with agility. Being nimble with instructional practice is an essential step in determining what is serving students and ourselves, and what might need to be jettisoned.
Habit stacking, brevity, and the idea that less is more all add up to one bigger idea: small actions are mighty, and they produce results. In teaching, the details matter. To that end, the coming chapters are filled with strategies for applying small and mighty moves to teaching practice before, during, and after instruction, as well as the spaces in between when well-being and belonging become paramount to long-term success. Every figure and tool is designed for immediate, practical application in the classroom.
To get the most out of this book, listening to your inner teaching voice is paramount. Certain ideas will fit more naturally into your existing practice, whereas others require more of a stretch. Starting with what is more familiar and gradually bridging toward new methods exemplifies the central message of this book: take one tiny aspect of practice, make an equally tiny change, and repeat. Keep going and keep changing. Only then will both you and your students get to experience the joy of what is truly possible in an ideal classroom space.
