Sep 10, 2019
3 min

About Love & Hate

I love writing about my hometown of El Paso, Texas. I hate having to write about it today, though...

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THE BETTER THAN GOOD BLOG

Jul 27, 2021
3 min

(Re) Planting the Seeds of Hope

I was looking back in the archives (I mean, way back) to when I once wrote a weekly editorial column in the El Paso Times. The title of...

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Feb 11, 2021
5 min

Ace on the Court: The Magic of Omar Lopez

From behind my windshield I saw little kids that reminded me of small chicks, chirping around on the tennis court, gathering tennis balls as

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Dec 11, 2019
6 min

The Better Than Good Blog: A Peak Behind the Mask- How Our Kids Can Learn From The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian is the metaphorical depiction of how our students and children often hide behind their own masks in and outside of class.

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Nov 27, 2019
3 min

The Better Than Good Blog: Solving vs Succumbing

We can learn a lot from the Panyee FC soccer kids that had the audacity to float an outrageous idea and see it through!

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Oct 30, 2019
6 min

Better Than Good: Living In The Moment (Part 2)

Teachers are often willing to add a student's baggage onto their own loads in order to help them travel lighter throughout the school day.

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Oct 21, 2019
6 min

Better Than Good: Living In The Moment (Part 1)

My wife and I aren’t quite sure what planet she’s from but we’re grateful to have her.

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Oct 10, 2019
4 min

Better Than Good: Helping Students "Run To Sun"

There's no better feeling for a student than to feel confident in the classroom, like they're running downhill with the wind at their backs.

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ABOUT

Phillip Dominic Cortez was born in El Paso, Texas where he became fascinated with books and stories at a very early age. It wasn’t long before he wanted to write his own stories.

“I was always making up stories to try and get out of trouble anyway,” he laughs. “But that sort of comes with the territory when you’ve got four brothers.”

Cortez began his career as a freelance sports writer, writing stories for his local paper and later moving onto writing editorials and feature stories for different publications. His children’s book, “Night Rhythms,” was published in 2011 followed by “When I Close My Eyes” in 2013.

Cortez turned his attention to Social Emotional Learning and the well-being of the children reading his books in the 2018 book, "#TheHappyManifesto - Three Rules For Happier Students." As a result, The Better Than Good Blog was launched in 2019.

Cortez still loves to read and, with his wife, Patty, is now fascinated by the many stories told by their four children: Ivan, Cameron, Ava and Zoe.

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Khaled Hosseini follows up his best-selling book, The Kite Runner, with something even more profound - A Thousand Splendid Suns. This book is an essential read! - PDC