What Teachers Can Learn from Farsighted
Teachers make hundreds of small, repeatable decisions a day — which student to call on, how to pace a lesson — and get fast feedback on most of them. But the big decisions in a teaching career are different: whether to change grade levels, whether to push back on a curriculum mandate, whether to refer a struggling student for additional support. Those calls don't come with quick feedback, and the daily habit of deciding fast, alone, in the moment doesn't transfer well to them.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Map the whole student, not just the classroom version
When deciding how to handle a struggling or disruptive student, it's tempting to reason only from what you observe in your own classroom. But that student's situation involves other teachers, a counselor, family circumstances, and possibly issues entirely outside school. Before recommending a path, map out who else has a piece of the picture, not just your own observations.
A teacher decides a student is simply unmotivated based on classroom behavior alone and recommends a disciplinary track. Nobody consulted the school counselor, who already knew about a recent family disruption that explained the change in behavior, and the response ends up punishing a student who needed support instead.
Before making a significant call about a student, ask at least one other adult in that student's life what they're seeing that you might not be.
Picture more than one way the year could go
Teachers often plan a semester around the version of events where students progress roughly on schedule. It helps to also sketch a version where several students fall behind at once, a version where a key resource gets cut, and a version where an unexpected strength emerges — so the plan isn't only built for the outcome you're hoping for.
A teacher builds an entire unit around technology access at home, having only imagined the scenario where every student has a reliable device and connection. When a third of the class can't complete the assignment, there's no backup plan, and the unit has to be redesigned mid-week.
Before starting a major unit or program, write down one way it could go better than expected and one way it could go worse, and note what you'd do in each case.
Ask a colleague who sees it differently
It's easy to make classroom decisions in isolation, especially when your daily schedule barely overlaps with other teachers. Before committing to a significant change in approach, deliberately ask a colleague who teaches differently than you do, or who has taught the same students in a different context, what they'd do instead.
A teaching team adopts a new discipline approach after discussing it only within their own grade-level group, all of whom already agreed going in. A veteran teacher in another department, who has seen the same approach fail before, is never consulted, and the same problems resurface months later.
Before adopting a new classroom approach, ask one colleague outside your usual circle what could go wrong with it.
Keep an honest record and review it afterward
Teachers rarely get to see the downstream effects of decisions made in a single semester, which makes it tempting to skip reflection altogether. Keeping brief, honest notes on what you decided and why — and revisiting them at the end of the year — turns one year's hard-won judgment into something the next year can actually use.
Consulting other adults about a student takes time you don't have between class periods, and mapping every factor can feel excessive for a decision that needs an answer today. When time is tight, ask the single most relevant other person rather than skipping outside input altogether.
Name one thing, honestly
Think of a student or classroom decision you're facing right now — whose perspective on it are you missing because your school day never overlaps with theirs?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Before adopting a new classroom approach, ask one colleague outside your usual circle what could go wrong with it.