I’m teaching my lesson on self-control and the famous marshmallow experiment this Friday (you can see an early version of it here and I have the full lesson plan in my student motivation book).

Near the beginning of the lesson I do a little fun playacting of wanting to throw a something at a student but I restrain myself, and then share real-life examples of when I have, and have not, shown self-control. I then ask students to write down examples from their own lives.

Valerie Strauss just posted this video at her Washington Post blog, and after I shared it with Lara Hoekstra, one of my talented colleagues at Luther Burbank High School, she suggested it would be a good addition to that part of the lesson plan. It would be an example of a teacher who was not able to restrain himself, and would certainly grab students’ attention. I’m going to give it a try….

I’m adding this to The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control.