The concept of flow might be the most single important element of style since cavemen picked up the chisel. I generally advise that your reader is like a dim-witted five year-old with a short attention span and little interest in...

We have three kids that are all in different orbits. The girl is almost eight: so think multiplication tables, maps of Africa, and Harry Potter. The boy is just four and is learning the alphabet and how to count to...

I’ve never had so much time, or so little. Social distancing has eliminated a lot of typical time draws: commuting, dropping kids off at school, running errands, shopping. It would seem a good time for mental accounting, and yet the...

Helpful Tip: For top performance on a three hour test, sleep during the several days to a week beforehand is critical for top scores. The nights preceding the night before the test are, in fact, just as important to cognitive...

I think we could all use a little lift right, so I’ll start throwing some gems at anyone who needs a little optimism right now. This one is from my favorite guy ever, David Henry: “I know of no more...

Make sure you make an effort to connect with a student personally before launching into the material for the day. It’s especially important to engage on this more informal level with online instruction, when being on a screen can, in...

That heartbreaking scene: a father or a mother gasping for breath, quarantined in the hospital, cared for by a nurse with a mask strapped on so tightly and for so long that it bruises her and makes her eyes bulge,...

It’s been a strange month. One of my students asked me what my day was like and the length of my answer was surprisingly long. The tedium I feel apparently doesn’t fit reality. “I wake up when my son starts...

HELPFUL TIP: How many times have you worked through a problem for more time than you probably should only to put down the answer for X in the wrong units, or forgotten a negative sign that threw off the answer,...

HELPFUL TIP: This applies particularly to the SAT, which is notorious for “trap answers,” the ACT to lesser degree. On certain question types, it is wise to cover the answer choices (literally, like with your hand!) and predict the answer,...