I enjoy speaking with anyone about reimagining teaching in our disruptive new normal. Whether doing a TEDx talk, participating on a panel, leading workshops in public schools, or facilitating conversations at businesses or libraries, these conversations restore my faith in the project of educating our youth.

I have had the most impact in facilitating workshops/conversations in these areas:

1. Promoting kinesthetic learning in the classroom. Advances in the science of learning should cause us to rethink what it means to teach and learn. In short, when we realize the brain/body connection is a farce — rather the brain IS the body, and the body IS the brain — we educate the whole child. Learning becomes a calling to grow community, curiosity, personal expression, and grit.

2. Teaching public speaking by giving students permission to speak their worst. The fact that public speaking is one of the most feared activities, should give us pause to reframe it. As public speaking generally causes dread, we now have an opportunity to use that fear to rally students to climb that mountain. That can only happen when we give students permission to speak their worst and try again. When we do that, classrooms come to life — big time.

3. Reinventing Testing. We learn when we’re engaged. To that end, I “put tests first,” one that is challenging in the beginning of a unit. They take it twice: The first-time students take it together for five points (low stakes); the second time students take it alone for ten points. (Yes, retake. Achieve the grade you want.) Big idea: With immediate feedback and the support of community, we learn gain content mastery early in a unit. Now we have time to connect our new understanding to the world.

4. Teaching in The New Crazy. My book, Teaching in The New Crazy: On Thriving in an Overwhelming, Politicized, and Complicated World has tapped into a need for teachers and concerned citizens to give voice to their concerns about what it means to teach (or do anything) in our disrupted new normal. Exponential technological growth, deepening polarization, and worsening mental health speak to the need for this conversation.