He was a great speaker: funny, interacted with the audience, easy to understand.
Here are my main takeaways:
- Negative people have no power. We give power to them. Pouters pout and whiners whine because it works. Who is not on any committee, doesn't do any extra curricular activities, has the easiest load, and the smallest classes? The people who complain. It is easier to avoid, ignore, or give in then to face them head on and deal with it. But pouters will pout and whiners will whine until it doesn't work anymore.
- Treat everyone as if they're good. Good people deserve it and crummy people can't stand it. The example he gave is when you are in a grocery store and see a parent freaking out and yelling at their kid. The parent is not uncomfortable. We are. We have a problem with the behavior but the child has the bigger problem. Our normal reaction would be to ignore or go down a different aisle. He said, what if we went up to the parent and (treating them as if they are good) asked them a normal question, like where is the coffee? For a moment, it shifts the situation. Will the parent yell at you? Maybe. But you already knew they were an idiot the moment you walked down the aisle. Don't let troublemakers, whiners, and pouters be invisible.
- What's great about teaching is that it matters. What's hard about teaching is that it matters every day. Ten days out of ten we should never yell, never argue, and never use sarcasm. Ten days out of ten we should treat students with respect and dignity because we never know which day it's going to make a difference for them.
- What great teachers do differently is know how they come across.
