Source Notes

The selections come from David Cutler’s existing articles. Credits identify original publications and earlier, later, or related versions where these could be verified. Each entry also links to the archive text used for this collection. An archive date is not necessarily the date an article was first published; where no earlier publication is listed, that history has not been confirmed.

Some articles first appeared on Spin Education, also known as SpinEdu. David Cutler moved that work to Medium in 2018 and later to TeacherCutler.com. The old Spin Education site is no longer online. Its name and original publication dates remain as historical credits; the links with these selections point to their Medium versions.

Some selections are abridged, while others restore fuller passages from the author’s archive. Copyediting and limited transition changes improve clarity and correct errors. The brief chapter openings and dated excerpts in What I Reconsidered draw from the author’s existing writing. New notes identify later changes of view. The introduction draws on “The Necessity of Mentoring New Teachers”; its source record appears below. The former life-skills passage has been removed from the introduction.

Two selections were coauthored: A Tale of Two Teachers with Preston R. Michelson, and A New Twist on a Public-Private School Partnership with Elana Rome. Their contributions retain their attribution.

Chapter 1 · What Will They Remember

Introduction · The Necessity of Mentoring New Teachers

Another version: Edutopia, January 20, 2014. Why New Teachers Need Mentors.

Archive version: Medium, July 9, 2018. Read the archived article.

Return to the introduction

1.1 · Rethinking How to Engage History Students

Original publication: Spin Education, September 24, 2013. Rethinking How to Engage History Students.

Archive version: Medium, July 9, 2018. Read the archived article.

Source Notes

Chapter 1 · What Will They Remember

Introduction · The Necessity of Mentoring New Teachers

1.1 · Rethinking How to Engage History Students

1.2 · Allowing Students to ‘Figure It Out’

1.3 · Learning That Makes a Difference

1.4 · Top Five Life Skills Schools Rarely Teach

1.5 · Why School?: A Conversation Worth Having

Chapter 2 · You Cannot Cover Everything

2.1 · Discarding Textbooks: Learning by Doing

2.2 · How Superhero Comics Enhance Learning

2.3 · Using Pop and Rock to Teach History

2.4 · Beyond “Down With Textbooks”

2.5 · Can Teachers Think Outside of the Box?

Chapter 3 · Writing Is Thinking

3.1 · Why I Teach Journalism to My High School History Students

3.2 · To Teach Effective Writing, Model Effective Writing

3.3 · What I Learned about Teaching Writing from the Late, Great William Zinsser

3.4 · How to Curb Student Cheating

3.5 · Faking the College Application Essay

3.6 · AI Evangelists, Stop Calling Writing Teachers Luddites

Chapter 4 · Teaching the Students in Front of Us

4.1 · How to Teach Introverted Students

4.2 · A Tale of Two Teachers

4.3 · When Lessons Are Harmful, Insensitive

4.4 · Responding to Trump’s Language in the Classroom

4.5 · Why Student Tracking Is Just Plain Wrong

4.6 · How to Help Increasingly Stressed-Out Students

4.7 · Why Parents Stink at Communicating

4.8 · What I Want My Students and Newborn Son to Know about #MeToo and Civility

Chapter 5 · Rethinking Grades, Tests, and Rewards

5.1 · Homework: Reconsidering Its Purpose, Amount, and Weight

5.2 · The Differentiated Classroom: Doing What’s Fair

5.3 · Creativity: What the SAT Doesn’t Assess

5.4 · Rethinking Student Award Ceremonies

5.5 · Newsflash: Punishment Doesn’t Change Student Behavior

Chapter 6 · Student Voice Requires Adult Courage

6.1 · The Dead or Dying State of Student Journalism at Independent Schools

6.2 · If a School Won’t Support a Robust Student Newspaper, Don’t Trust It

6.3 · The Silent Censor: Why Student Journalists Are Putting Down the Pen

6.4 · Student Press and The Atlantic’s Wake-Up Call for Private Schools

Chapter 7 · Who Is Doing the Thinking

7.1 · Lessons from Nintendo: Game-Based Learning

7.2 · Technology: The Faustian Bargain

2023 excerpt · The Atlantic’s Doom-and-Gloom Coverage of AI in Education

7.3 · Artificial Shortcuts, Real Consequences: The Costs of AI “Humanizers” to Learning

7.4 · GPT-5 Just Changed My Mind — Generative AI Has No Place in My Classroom

7.5 · Don’t Let AI Climb the Hill for Our Kids

7.6 · Teaching About AI Is Necessary. Teaching With AI Should Be Optional.

7.7 · The Pedagogy of Presence: Restricting ChatGPT-6 Astra to Protect and Cultivate Student Thinking

Chapter 8 · Teachers Must Keep Learning Too

8.1 · Rookie Teacher Confessions

8.2 · What Teachers Should Learn from Legendary Cross Country Coach Joe Newton

8.3 · Fixing Bad Professional Development

8.4 · Why Can’t Public and Private Schools Get Along?

8.5 · A New Twist on a Public-Private School Partnership

8.6 · What Gordon Wood, Eric Foner and James W. Loewen Told Me About Teaching History

Conclusion

Conclusion · Education Policy Has a Mic Problem

Photograph Credits

David Cutler in his classroom at Brimmer and May School.

David Cutler with student editors Jared Heller and Michelle Levinger in The Gator newsroom.

David and Elana.

Max Lehrer tries the robotic hand made by his father with high school students

Teaching digital tools in the student newsroom at Columbia University

My son and I after he climbed the icy hill on his own

Joe Newton