This fall, we opened a new school building. It’s a beautiful facility and designed for 21st century education, so there are a lot of positives to focus on, which my faculty and staff have been very consciously doing throughout the stress of acclimating to a new building while orienting students …
Listening today to an episode of The Takeaway from a few weeks ago (7/6/2020), and I was struck by the final segment, in which Tanzina Vega interviews Amanda Mull about her research into the #GirlBoss moment in American culture. Mull states as clearly—and frankly sympathetically—as I’ve ever heard it, why …
Over the weekend, I read this Medium post by Dr. Shayla R. Griffin, “Some Students Should Go To School, Most Should Stay Home.” In it, Dr. Griffin highlights the crisis of the schooling decision facing all communities right now: remote learning has serious weaknesses, but in-person instruction presents significant risks …
Reading “What Leading with Optimism Really Looks Like” in Harvard Business Review, written by Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan, and thinking about how to keep staff morale up during this time of isolation and challenge. The coronavirus shutdown of schools presents a crisis for educational leaders. Teachers have to move …
The story goes that the Athenians had defeated a larger Persian army in battle at a place called Marathon. A runner was sent back to announce the victory and he ran the whole way, about 25 miles, collapsing in death the moment after he triumphantly shouted “Nike!” the Greek word …
In his recent blog post, Thomas Martellone takes a methodical walk through the debate around data in education, and provides an excellent primer along with a rational argument. Basically, the concept is that data are useful, but get a bad rap because they are touted as the end all and …
OK, I find this article on procrastination fascinating. It’s one of those discoveries that I find myself still thinking about days after the initial read. As a degenerate procrastinator, I’m always looking for strategies to save me from myself, but this article also speaks to me as a manager thinking …
I like reading about innovative hiring & recruitment tactics because I see hiring as one of the greatest responsibilities of a manager and one of the most terrifying. We don’t hire so often in schools that it can ever become a routine, yet there’s an enormous amount riding on every …
I just read Justin Tarte’s post “Your passion can be your worst enemy…” and I couldn’t agree more! I know the feeling so well of being in a faculty meeting, presenting an idea, and wondering why it’s not taking off; I’ve been in that position plenty of times before. He …
