Doug Lemov's field notes

Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

01.16.17 A Martin Luther King Day Reflection on Courage

For the past few years I’ve tried to spend the morning of MLK day studying the details of his life, usually by re-reading sections of my favorite books on the subject, Taylor Branch’s America in the King Years trilogy. Last year I started writing about my annual reflection on King’s life and work. This morning I…


01.18.16 A Picture of Dr. King as a Child

Today being Martin Luther King day, I spent the morning re-reading passages from Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of King, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, particularly the hundred or so pages of his treatment of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. To some degree the boycott has, in Branch’s words, “dissolved in memory to a…


03.12.15 When (Especially) to ‘Reject Self-Report’

Technique #1 in the new Teach Like a Champion 2.0 is “Reject Self Report.”  The idea being that we should listen for the moments when, having just taught something or explained a task, we ask students questions like:  “Everybody understand?” or “Everyone got it?” These questions, we should realize, are functionally rhetorical. There is only one…