In Praise of Foibles
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Description
Classrooms should be inviting and safe places where students can strive to achieve worthwhile goals, even as they learn that the road to improvement is not always paved. This deceptively simple guiding principle is what Ron Nash has spent four decades in education pursuing and refining. In Praise of Foibles: The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools is the guide every teacher who has ever wanted to take a chance on improvement needs to read.
Learn the research-based techniques and best practices that enable you to:
- Establish an environment of safety instead of fear
- Encourage risk-taking and resilience
- Set high expectations and achieve high engagement
- Let go of control and watch your students flourish
Author Ron Nash returns with his inimitable writing style and disarming honesty to show how every teacher can transform their classroom into what students need to be successful in the 21st century.
Contents
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
Prologue: Fail Forward
- Things That Go Bump in the Road
- Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor Pain
- Just Start Writing
- Easy Doesn't Do It
- The Gift of Letting Them Figure Things Out
- 1. All They Have to Fear
- The Fear Factor
- Beyond The Classroom
- A Foundation of Trust and Respect
- The Frazzle Factor
- Safety First
- The Do Your Own Work Syndrome
- The Peers Have It
- The Learning Zone
- Moving Forward
- 2. You Call That a Mistake?
- The Great Toilet Paper Miscue
- A Little Empath, Please
- Mistakes Are Inevitable . . . and Profitable
- Find Another Lens (or Two)
- Failure and the Creative Process
- Moving Forward
- 3. Something Borrowed, Something New
- Four Lenses
- There Is Always Right Now
- What Students Want
- A Glass Filled to Overflowing
- Listen More; Talk Less
- Only One Way to Find Out
- Moving Forward
- 4. Feedback and the Modeling of Listening Skills
- Sources of Feedback
- Working the Room
- Model Listening Skills
- The Purposeful Pause
- Paraphrasing for Clarification
- Make Praise Useful and Authentic
- Moving Forward
- 5. I Used to Think . . .
- Sustaining the Status Quo
- Speaking of Thinking
- Writing is Thinking
- Work the Room
- Moving Forward
- 6. Take Care of the Kids; They'll Take Care of the Tests
- Win-Win Classrooms
- Culture as an Accelerator
- How We Do Things Here
- Cultures Designed for Comfort and Learning
- Dump the Excuses
- No Excuses Here
- Moving Forward
- 7. Build Improvement Systems to Last
- Toxic Cultures
- The Why, Not the Who
- The Value of Why
- Seek Feedback and Use It
- Concentrate on Root Causes, Not Symptoms
- Let Faculty Meetings Meet Their Maker
- "What Are You Going to Do About That?"
- The Beat Goes On
- Offline and Onsite
- From Congenial to Collegial
- Don't Blame the People; Fix the System
- Fail Quickly, Fail Forward, and Keep Running
- Move Forward
Epilogue: The Far Turn
Epilogue: The Far Turn
References
References
Description
Classrooms should be inviting and safe places where students can strive to achieve worthwhile goals, even as they learn that the road to improvement is not always paved. This deceptively simple guiding principle is what Ron Nash has spent four decades in education pursuing and refining. In Praise of Foibles: The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools is the guide every teacher who has ever wanted to take a chance on improvement needs to read.
Learn the research-based techniques and best practices that enable you to:
- Establish an environment of safety instead of fear
- Encourage risk-taking and resilience
- Set high expectations and achieve high engagement
- Let go of control and watch your students flourish
Author Ron Nash returns with his inimitable writing style and disarming honesty to show how every teacher can transform their classroom into what students need to be successful in the 21st century.
Contents
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
Prologue: Fail Forward
- Things That Go Bump in the Road
- Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor Pain
- Just Start Writing
- Easy Doesn't Do It
- The Gift of Letting Them Figure Things Out
- 1. All They Have to Fear
- The Fear Factor
- Beyond The Classroom
- A Foundation of Trust and Respect
- The Frazzle Factor
- Safety First
- The Do Your Own Work Syndrome
- The Peers Have It
- The Learning Zone
- Moving Forward
- 2. You Call That a Mistake?
- The Great Toilet Paper Miscue
- A Little Empath, Please
- Mistakes Are Inevitable . . . and Profitable
- Find Another Lens (or Two)
- Failure and the Creative Process
- Moving Forward
- 3. Something Borrowed, Something New
- Four Lenses
- There Is Always Right Now
- What Students Want
- A Glass Filled to Overflowing
- Listen More; Talk Less
- Only One Way to Find Out
- Moving Forward
- 4. Feedback and the Modeling of Listening Skills
- Sources of Feedback
- Working the Room
- Model Listening Skills
- The Purposeful Pause
- Paraphrasing for Clarification
- Make Praise Useful and Authentic
- Moving Forward
- 5. I Used to Think . . .
- Sustaining the Status Quo
- Speaking of Thinking
- Writing is Thinking
- Work the Room
- Moving Forward
- 6. Take Care of the Kids; They'll Take Care of the Tests
- Win-Win Classrooms
- Culture as an Accelerator
- How We Do Things Here
- Cultures Designed for Comfort and Learning
- Dump the Excuses
- No Excuses Here
- Moving Forward
- 7. Build Improvement Systems to Last
- Toxic Cultures
- The Why, Not the Who
- The Value of Why
- Seek Feedback and Use It
- Concentrate on Root Causes, Not Symptoms
- Let Faculty Meetings Meet Their Maker
- "What Are You Going to Do About That?"
- The Beat Goes On
- Offline and Onsite
- From Congenial to Collegial
- Don't Blame the People; Fix the System
- Fail Quickly, Fail Forward, and Keep Running
- Move Forward
Epilogue: The Far Turn
Epilogue: The Far Turn
References
References
In Praise of Foibles
The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools
August 2023 | 120 pages | Corwin
| Format | Published Date | ISBN | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paperback | 01/02/2026 | 9781943920570 | $37.95 |
Classrooms should be inviting and safe places where students can strive to achieve worthwhile goals, even as they learn that the road to improvement is not always paved. This deceptively simple guiding principle is what Ron Nash has spent four decades in education pursuing and refining. In Praise of Foibles: The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools is the guide every teacher who has ever wanted to take a chance on improvement needs to read.
Learn the research-based techniques and best practices that enable you to:
- Establish an environment of safety instead of fear
- Encourage risk-taking and resilience
- Set high expectations and achieve high engagement
- Let go of control and watch your students flourish
Author Ron Nash returns with his inimitable writing style and disarming honesty to show how every teacher can transform their classroom into what students need to be successful in the 21st century.
Table Of Contents:
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue: Fail Forward
- Things That Go Bump in the Road
- Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor Pain
- Just Start Writing
- Easy Doesn't Do It
- The Gift of Letting Them Figure Things Out
- 1. All They Have to Fear
- The Fear Factor
- Beyond The Classroom
- A Foundation of Trust and Respect
- The Frazzle Factor
- Safety First
- The Do Your Own Work Syndrome
- The Peers Have It
- The Learning Zone
- Moving Forward
- 2. You Call That a Mistake?
- The Great Toilet Paper Miscue
- A Little Empath, Please
- Mistakes Are Inevitable . . . and Profitable
- Find Another Lens (or Two)
- Failure and the Creative Process
- Moving Forward
- 3. Something Borrowed, Something New
- Four Lenses
- There Is Always Right Now
- What Students Want
- A Glass Filled to Overflowing
- Listen More; Talk Less
- Only One Way to Find Out
- Moving Forward
- 4. Feedback and the Modeling of Listening Skills
- Sources of Feedback
- Working the Room
- Model Listening Skills
- The Purposeful Pause
- Paraphrasing for Clarification
- Make Praise Useful and Authentic
- Moving Forward
- 5. I Used to Think . . .
- Sustaining the Status Quo
- Speaking of Thinking
- Writing is Thinking
- Work the Room
- Moving Forward
- 6. Take Care of the Kids; They'll Take Care of the Tests
- Win-Win Classrooms
- Culture as an Accelerator
- How We Do Things Here
- Cultures Designed for Comfort and Learning
- Dump the Excuses
- No Excuses Here
- Moving Forward
- 7. Build Improvement Systems to Last
- Toxic Cultures
- The Why, Not the Who
- The Value of Why
- Seek Feedback and Use It
- Concentrate on Root Causes, Not Symptoms
- Let Faculty Meetings Meet Their Maker
- "What Are You Going to Do About That?"
- The Beat Goes On
- Offline and Onsite
- From Congenial to Collegial
- Don't Blame the People; Fix the System
- Fail Quickly, Fail Forward, and Keep Running
- Move Forward
- Epilogue: The Far Turn
- References