Every teacher (and leader) has heard some version of: “You need to work on your classroom management.” Or “You should push students to write at a higher level.”
Great. Thanks. But what does that look like?
That’s where exemplars come in.
Exemplars make excellence visible. They’re not just polished models; they’re guideposts, sparks, and sometimes even mirrors that help us believe growth is possible. Used well, exemplars can:
Build self-efficacy by showing the path to success.
Normalize the messy process behind mastery.
Provide concrete, clear benchmarks for both students and teachers.
Shift the culture from judgment to growth.
I’ve done A LOT of writing on exemplars in the past 19 months of the substack. I am putting some of them here for you:
I’ve pulled together my best thinking (and some personal stories) in a short e-book called Exemplar: How We React to Seeing the Bar—and What to Do About It and I’m giving it to all paid subscribers as a THANK YOU for your support.
📘 Inside, you’ll find:
What exemplars are (and what they aren’t).
How they connect to belief systems and self-efficacy.
The emotional reactions exemplars trigger (from “let’s do this” to “I suck”).
A framework for using exemplars in classrooms and coaching.
A vision for the future of exemplars that goes beyond static models.
This book is for anyone who has ever stared at “the bar” and wondered if they could reach it—or wanted to help someone else believe they could. If you are not yet a paid subscriber and are interested in the book, it’s being sold for $9.99 on TPT.
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