“It's teeny tiny little things. When you combine those together, you are tapping into that brain research that's giving our brain a different assignment and looking for the positive. And we will find it.”

“The research is really clear that the absolute, most direct correlation to student achievement that we have control over is the teacher in the classroom.”

“This is the reminder that, yes, of course we have to talk about instruction, but the magic isn't in the strategy; it's in the person providing that strategy.”

“I always say it's an ‘and'—it's not an ‘or.' It's not instruction or self-care.”

“It's those small wins that we look over. If we're not looking for them, we can miss them, and we just keep thinking, ‘I'm not as good as that person.’”

“It's vulnerable but it's necessary to be able to honor yourself and say, ‘I need help. I need support.’”

“You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle. One candle can light 15,000 without losing its flame.”

“Sometimes your day is just teaching someone a life skill…and hopefully that's going to get them to learning.”

“Whatever I'm feeling is not just impacting me, even though I want to think it is, or that I’m masking it. I know that if I'm not at my A game, it's impacting my students.”

“It is not just trying hard that makes you successful. You need to be set up in a situation that helps you like an ally, as opposed to fighting you like an enemy.”

“If you put temptations very close to you…it's much more psychologically potent than if you put it away where you cannot see it or you cannot touch it, or both.”

“The strategy for regulating yourself that is the most successful for people of any age tends to be situation modification. That is not relying on willpower, but deliberately placing things either farther or closer, depending on whether you want to do them more or do them less.”

“Aside from parents, there's nobody more important than teachers in the life of a kid. They are looking to you as a role model.”

“That science of self-control—we have to actually teach that to our students. That is not something they come out of the womb knowing how to do.”

“Culture is this living thing, and it can shift from classroom to classroom, and it shifts from year to year. And so, building that is just as much of an art as it is a science, but it's so critical.”

“I believe that all students can be successful in a classroom given the right support, but students have to believe that as well. So we have to be genuine and authentic when we show up in that way, because they know when you're not.”

“First come in with the attitude of I'm a learner, too. I want to learn about you, and you'll learn about me.’”

“You don't have to be an expert in every single language. You just need to know enough about that language to serve your students.”

“I look at the faces of the students that are there and that motivates me. All the other noise doesn't matter because I'm there to help them reach their dreams.”

“I am an educator of all students, it doesn't matter who they are.”

“As a teacher, you're always confronted with things that you may not be strong in. Like, it's part of the job. And that hits you. And I'll be transparent, it hits you in the ego.”

“You're always going to be presented with people that you don't feel properly equipped to serve. And that's okay. It's part of being a human. So what do we do? We go and find resources so that we can become better.”

“Education is the kind of job that I love, because I think I'll always feel, to some degree, like an amateur, like a learner in the work.”

“Create spaces where every kid could come in and say, ‘Whatever I offer here, if it's personal and earnest, it's gonna be well received and valuable.'”

“I was never seen as a student who was good at math. So I made it a point to be that math teacher that actually embraced a community of, “‘Hey, let's, you know, let's look at all the possibilities of how we can get to that answer.'”

“The posters are one thing, but the pedagogies are another.”

“What I'm always thinking about is how to make math more like the humanities, how to allow students to be right in personal ways and wrong in smart ways.”

“Kids like and learn from teachers who like and learn from them. ”

“As human beings, sometimes we can get binary with things like tech or analog. But in reality, it's a tool. If I use the proper tool for the right job, I can be much more precise and accurate and detailed and creative.”

“When we view students not as difficult, but as those who challenge us to be our best, we switch from frustration to growth.”

“There's research out there. I know some of us feel like we intuitively know that [smiling] is important, but the data shows how important that is.”

“What I discovered is that when I was funny, if I could make them laugh, if I could say something that was unexpected, they paid attention. They hung on every word.”

“When we teach kids from a place of love and lightheartedness, we can really draw in even the most volatile and vulnerable youngsters.”

“We can do both rigor and relationships. We can address standards and smiles. We can do content and care.”

“ When you have a joyous classroom, you have a learning classroom.”