Teach Different

What makes somebody a hero? Everybody respects heroes because they rise above and do extraordinary things. Common wisdom sees heroism as something you attain from serving others. Think of the firefighter who saves lives, or the patient who fights off illness. But, maybe heroism doesn’t require such remarkable effort. Maybe if we put trust in who we are and emanate confidence, then that will make u...

What is the best way to overcome our fears? Fear is a force that can be debilitating for kids and adults alike. Fear obstructs clear thinking and fuels anxiety in a way that makes it hard to work and be successful at anything. Uncertainty is often behind our fears. When we don’t know what to do, we become afraid of what the future has in store for us. Yet, sometimes knowing what to do actually ins...

Can we really make a difference in the world. When students are told they can change the world, many don't believe it. They think making the world a better place is for the people who are in power, not the average person, but doing small things can make a big difference.  What a person does in the classroom at his/her school, or in the community, can provide the soil for real change. It's har...

Should we strive for perfection? So many of our students feel pressure to be the perfect athlete, student, or friend. This feeling is accompanied by a pervasive fear of failure and the possibility that they might let others down. When we fall short of perfection, students have important decisions to make about whether to keep pursuing it or be okay with something less. The decisions they make shap...

Do you have to go through bad experiences to be a strong person? Everybody experiences struggle. Sometimes the struggle ends up making the person more self-confident, stronger and better able to move forward to the next challenge. But other times adversity breeds fear and inaction. Every struggle is an opportunity for students to make an ethical choice on how to respond in a way that helps them co...

How do we know when to trust other people? Trust requires that you must set aside your feelings of suspicion and agree to work with people in good faith. Sometimes trust is difficult to attain, yet to live and solve problems with other people, we need to trust them. Trusting others will sometimes lead us into grim disappointment, but it can also restore our faith in people. Trust is a skill and mu...

Do you have influence over the world? Students are in the midst of figuring out who they are and how they can influence the world. Some feel helpless because it seems that they were born into a difficult situation or have experienced an unfair share of pain and heartache. Others feel almost superhuman and think they have the power to change anything they want. The truth of self-determination is re...

Is sacrificing yourself for others always the right thing to do? Sacrifice requires that we do things today that don’t have immediate benefits for ourselves; but help others instead. Students have generous hearts but, for the most part, are focused on their own successes and sometimes resist the moral obligation to sacrifice for others. Join Steve and Dan Fouts for a conversation about sacrifice u...

What is the best way to raise your self esteem? All students know at some level what it feels like to be humiliated. When this happens, the person who is hurt has a decision to make, he/she can either buy into the criticism and be made to feel small and insignificant or he/she can resist feelings of inferiority and defeat the criticism through positive thinking. It takes energy to build and mainta...

What's the best way to deal with negative people? Negative people are everywhere, in the classroom, at home, or at the workplace. We often feel trapped and forced to be patient with people who bring us down. Sometimes we have the option of fleeing these situations, especially when negativity turns to hate. Escape from negative people can preserve our integrity and save our energies for people who...

Does a confident mindset guarantee success? There's no denying that confidence plays a role in success. What's harder to determine is just what kind of role. Some say that a confident mindset going into a task is the most important ingredient for success. Others say the only way to be confident is to actually achieve something first. Students must determine for themselves how to gain confidence in...

Do you have to have critics to succeed? Taking constructive criticism can be difficult. It requires a person to resist the emotional need to lash back against people who point out flaws. Many people would rather hear words of encouragement because they carry with them the feeling of unconditional love and acceptance. Yet, being able to listen to suggestions for improvement is a really important li...

Can people learn no matter how old they are? While it is true that education is valuable to all of us at any age, it is also true that our energies and resources are limited and must be used wisely if we want to change the world into something better. Some say that children should be the focus because their minds are more easily shaped and influenced; others suggest that adults, who are actually i...

Do we control our own actions? Life throws unexpected events at us which take us by surprise. When crisis happens, we feel out of control. We are left to react in the best ways we can to protect ourselves and improve our situations, but we often feel like our actions don’t matter in the face of an indifferent world. Join Steve and Dan Fouts for a conversation about stress management using the Teac...

Do you control your future? If there is one message we send consistently to our kids, it's this: your choices matter. We want them to see the world as a place where they are in control of what happens. If they make the right choices, happiness awaits them. If they choose the wrong path, life is unforgiving. What this simple admonition misses, though, is that sometimes life makes decisions for us,...

Do you need loyalty to fight injustice? Sometimes doing the right thing means that you will face scorn and ridicule from other people. This opposition may take the form of angry words thrown against us. As much as these words hurt us, there is a different kind of pain we feel when those in whom we place our trust end up letting us down. Friends and enemies have the power to injure us and so we mus...

Do we have control over our own success? Setting aside the 19th century gender-biased language and applying the wisdom to all students, Thoreau is saying something important about success and positive thinking. If students believe they can succeed, then they are halfway home. The power of positive thinking is undeniable.  But, failure is also crucial for human development. Students must find...

Do we have the power to make ourselves happy? Students think and talk about happiness all of the time. Some believe happiness is something we control and that if we just do the right things we will become happy. There are others who think of happiness as a byproduct of a good environment and not something we can control. The issue of whether we control our happiness is an important one because it...

How do you know when to put other people's needs above your own? Students of every age struggle with moral decisions about how to balance their own individual needs with the needs of others. Either way they decide, there is sacrifice. Focus on the individual and they must sacrifice others. Focus on others and they must sacrifice the individual. What's important is that students make a commitment t...

Does diversity makes us stronger? Diversity is something many students confront for the first time in school. They are required to learn with students of different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, not to mention those who embrace different traditions, learning styles and ways of seeing the world. When students confront diversity, they confront moral choices on how to react to people who ar...

Should we question what we are sure of? All students have run across "know-it-alls," people who walk into a room and express supreme confidence with their knowledge. Being humble is seen as a sign of weakness. Humble students wait patiently, ask questions, and only speak when they are certain of something. Confidence and humility are equally noble traits. The life-long challenge is striking the ri...

What does it mean to be a friend? Students have strong opinions about friends. They are in the process of making friendships and ending them. Students have different perspectives on how many friends they should have. Some believe that friends should come in large numbers, while others believe the word 'friend' should be reserved for the very few. Forming healthy friendships is an important...

Do we have control of our future? Students are fed the consistent message that they can achieve anything in life if they work hard at it. They are in control of their future. Students are also aware that much of their future is out of their control. No matter how hard they try, they will never achieve certain things. These two forces, the internal force of their own desires and the external force...

How do you know when giving to others will make you happy? Happiness is something all students want. The challenge is how to get it. Students often get mixed messages here. On the one hand, they are told to focus on themselves and figure out a path towards happiness that benefits them directly. On the other hand, they are told that happiness can only be achieved by helping others. The choices they...

What's the best way to plan your life? Setting life goals is an activity we encourage young people to do. If you set goals for your future, then you will become happier and successful because you know what you want. That being said, it's very unclear just how we should plan out our lives. Is it better to set small attainable goals or long-term goals which are harder to see, but inspire us to do th...