Forgive me for editorializing a little bit. I recently listened to a podcast from a “conservative” commentator. Overall, she was well-balanced and made some good points about the world we live in and life in general. Then she talked about public education. Now, I am not one of those people that looks uncritically at public education. I think there are things we (as…
Here is a question for you.What would be different about schooling if we tried to see the good in people?Instead of seeing a student as a “gifted student,” or a “special education student,” or a parent as a “good parent” or “bad parent,” what if we just emptied our brain of what we know (or think we know) about the…
A friend and mentor of mine recently asked me a question. Basically, he wanted to know what I thought about his sharing that he believes the only way “transformation” will happen in schooling is if there is a separate system created where people can start from scratch. Everyone who has put any thought into the direction of education has had…
Who wants to work hard to enact evidence-free solutions in your organization? I suspect there are not a lot of hands being raised out there in the ether right now!Of course, most of us want to think that when we introduce a new program, service, or procedure that there is at least some evidence that it has worked somewhere else…
How would you like these conclusions from a study done to evaluate the effectiveness of “new” structures for schools?1. When engaged teachers, administrators, and students are given the freedom to experiment and the help to do it, they will come through.2. There is no one best way of schooling youth.3. Students can graduate high school who are academically engaged, involved…
I have lived in an education self-cancel culture for most of my career. Now, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me because I have self-canceled. What do I mean when I say that I have lived in an education self-cancel culture? First, what I believe about learning and education is not part of the status quo. For example,…
I hear a lot about “transformation” in schools. I know there are many well-meaning people that want schools to “transform”…heck, I am one of those! But as I have mentioned in earlier newsletters, “transformation” becomes a “blur word” if it is not defined.In other words, what does “transformation” mean to you?Once you have the definition out of the way, you…
In a previous newsletter, I highlighted the problems I saw developing with the concept of “learner-centered leadership.” In a nutshell, the problem is being too focused on the learning ecosystem and not paying attention to other ecosystems that school leaders must “live” in.The graphic above shows the relationship between the three important ecosystems school leaders must consider.Notice that all three ecosystems…
A teacher just starts their lesson when a student gets up from their seat, swears at the teacher, and walks out of the room. This behavior seemingly comes out of nowhere. Thirty minutes later, the student comes back into the classroom and sits down as if nothing happened. During lunch duty, a teacher who is monitoring the lunch is surrounded…
Learner-centered leadership, learner-centered instruction, or learner-centered anything is not a bad concept. In fact, school leaders that change their mindset toward being learner-centered will start to make strides toward transforming the school system. The concept of learner-centered is summarized in the idea of a learner-centered ecosystem. But there is a problem with the learner-centered ecosystem. A problem big enough to…
Three years into my career as a teacher, a couple moved into our community to teach at the high school where I worked. Since working at the high school I graduated from, I was always keenly interested in the new people moving into town and how they would fit in. To make a long story short, the couple became good friends…
As you know, I travel through a lot of school buildings in my job as an Executive Director and as a coach. When i walk into a school buisding I am invariably drawn to the outward “relics” that are meant to represent a school’s culture.By relics, I mean vision statements, mission statements, slogans, trophy cases (depending on where they are…
Have you ever had a situation when you said something or did something and then discovered that you didn’t have the right information or context to understand the situation? I have this happen to me almost everyday. I have found that it is hard to take back words and actions once they are in the world.Life is a story, so…
Public school educators are facing a monumental challenge in today’s world. There is a major political party in the United States that will weaponize everything we do in further of their own political interests…facts be damned! On top of these outside forces pressuring public school educators, there is a more insidious internal system that is limiting the possibilities for schools…
According to a study published by the Hoover Institute titled The Economic Cost of the Pandemic, (Eric Hanushek, 2023), the author claims he can predict how “learning loss” during the pandemic will impact the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of each individual State in the United States…for the rest of the 21st century! Wow! For example, his “analysis” predicts that New…
On July 2nd, 1881, Charles Guiteau, a man who was upset he did not get a political favor from the President of The United States, attempted to assassinate President James Garfield. I say “attempted” because the gunshot wound was not immediately deadly. As a matter of fact, if the President’s doctors could have kept their dirty fingers out of his…
I welcome you to imagine a school where this chart drives all decisions. Imagine a world where we don’t hear things like “What does the data from the test scores tell us?”Imagine a school where we don’t hear, “You can’t do that because {blank} says you can’t.”Imagine a classroom where we don’t hear, “We have to learn this because you need…
How many times have you heard someone say, “You just have to get out of your own head?” Usually, you hear this when you are “stuck” and questioning yourself. Well, wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of “getting out of your own head,” you made your head a nice place to be? I think that sounds better!How can you make…
Blur words are words that are so vague in meaning that they are not useful in trying to explain anything. Those of us in education come across blur words a lot…they are kind of like the phenomenon when you buy a new car, and then suddenly almost every car you see is just like yours. Blur words are like that.…
Those of us engaged in public education must constantly adjust, reflect, and react to what is happening in the education environment. This means we nurture what is working in our schools right now, while also trying new practices to adjust to the future.I like the “Three Horizons” framework to help us think through how we can concentrate on our present…
First of all, my headline is slightly bullshittish. How do we define “success?” Our job as educators is to help learners figure out what success means for them and their families within the context of their world. BUT, I do like the idea of figuring out what are the actual skills students need to have a chance in today’s world,…
Okay, we know we live in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world. A statement of fact: in the past two years we have experienced an exponential rise in VUCA. How can you make plans and reach for goals in a VUCA world? For every project or goal figure out your parameters of possibility. Ask yourself this question: Under the…
Your purpose lies beyond your work. It is the reason you think you exist. Most leaders do not take the time to really consider their purpose, or they lie to themselves about their true purpose. As a matter of fact, it is easy to put words on a piece of paper claiming your purpose is “to help learners learn” or…
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi developed the concept of a “flow state.” Have you ever been working on a project or a task and you had so much concentration that you didn’t notice that hours had gone by? That is a flow state. It is safe to assume that people love to be in a flow state, but it is hard to…
Last week I had in-depth conversations with three outstanding educators. Two of them are teachers, and one is a building principal. These people are the cream of the crop when it comes to educators. All of them have dedicated their lives to making the world a better place for the learners in the classrooms and buildings. None of them have…
I recently heard a school administrator say that they were looking for “rigor” in how learners are taught. Great.Good for them.Now what?Just because you say words that sound good, doesn’t mean they will have any impact on how learners are taught or how your school is run. Too many times we say words with the assumption that everyone agrees on the…
I created the New learning Ecosystem chart seven years ago. It was my attempt to try to make sense of the direction learning should go in the future. Interestingly, “learner-centered” is having a moment right now. There are so many great resources to learn more about becoming a learner-centered educator. A recent group that is having a lot of impact is…
I want to share two conversations I had this week that will form the basis for the theme of today’s blog postI talked to a teacher who told me that she has noticed a dramatic increase in the intensity of rude behavior coming from kids. She commented that is almost like they either don’t care if they are being rude…
Walking to the front door was not an easy chore. I had to navigate around broken toys, lots of snow, and an occasional car part. The “porch” to the mobile home didn’t look too promising either. I wondered if it would hold my weight. I hunched my shoulders to protect my neck from the blowing wind and snow and placed…
I want to thank Gregg Behr, the Executive Director of The Grable Foundation, for inspiring this post. Although we were not talking directly about educators when he mentioned the exhausted majority, I was inspired to think about other areas where there can be exhausted majorities. Check out Gregg’s book on Mister Rogers.I have been thinking a lot about a definition of a…
As I reflect on the potential impact of web 3.0 I keep coming back to the idea of “decentralization.” Now, this term means something different to different people within the web 3.0 community, but here is my shot at a definition.Decentralization is the empowerment of individuals to show their excellence.Right now, decentralized finance is gaining traction in everyday life. The…
In my perfect world, schools are based on the diagram above. The learner is at the center of every decision made in the school. This implies there is no room for decisions centered on “adult convenience”. The school is systemically built to provide the optimal learning experience for every learner. Period.As I look around at what is occurring in society,…
Recently, I have sat through a few meetings of educators where the topic involved “the learning gap” caused by the pandemic. I put “learning gap” in quotations because I am not sure what is meant by the term, and I am equally suspicious that there even is a learning gap. Let me explain. Any “gap” insinuates there is an agreed-upon…
As we emerge bleary eyed from the pandemic, let’s take some time to reflect on what will change in schooling because of the pandemic. 1. Schools will innovate beyond their traditional “walls”. The pandemic taught us two things about school. Virtual learning works for some learners. Virtual learning does not work for some learners. The fact that virtual learning is viewed…
This week I met over 100 educators in different events. I talked to everyone from a superintendent looking at his last few months on the job, to new teachers who are ready to change the world. It reflects the people I decide to hang out with, but all of them can be classified as “learner-centered.” They care deeply about kids,…
Early in my career, I faced three tough decisions in a six-year period. My wife and I had to decide whether to uproot our family so I could accept a job in another part of the State. Anyone that has gone through these decisions knows how difficult they are. They are multifaceted. There are family, personal, and professional considerations all mixed up…
The following is post from my weekly newsletter, The Learner-Centered Leader. To subscribe to the newsletter you can click on the button below. Too often, people complain about something, whether it’s a situation, an institution, or a governmental entity without offering solutions to the problem. Well today, dear friends, I am offering a solution to the problem facing public education.…
Last week I talked about two terrible, horrible, no good, very bad questions. This week I am talking about the one great question. As a backdrop. I am a volunteer coach for a local high school boys basketball team. (An aside, being a volunteer coach is great. I don’t have to make any decisions and I tell everyone they are great..what can…
(This is written as a letter to my two college-aged daughters.) (It is also the foundation of my learner-centered leadership beliefs) I apologize to both of you for every well-meaning person who has asked you these two questions: 1. “What are you going to be when you grow up?” 2. “What job are you going to get with that major?”People…
Raise your hand if you feel as if you are the hamster running on that wheel…working hard and staying in place! In our VUCA (Volitile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, the number of micro and macro decisions that we are making is increasing. I think there is a direct correlation between the “more VUCA” the world is to the number of…
3 Drivers For Transforming Education Systems One of my “go-to” newsletters is The Learn Letter by Eva Keiffenheim. As the name of the newsletter states, she is concerned with studying how people learn. In her latest issue, she shares insights that a group of learning researchers she worked with to help make sense of education. The research team came up with three…
The Iceberg Model Of Systems Change We have all heard of the saying “that’s the tip of the iceberg” at some point in our careers. We usually use the saying to mean that there is a lot more going on with a situation than we can “see” at that moment. This week Jen Anderson shared this image with me. The image distills the importance…
What a great blog post I ran across last week. The author, Carey Nieuwof, makes a great point about why a lot of us (and I am definitely in this category) struggle mightily with time management. Reasons time management will not help you too much You are managing a fixed asset…24 hours in a day, that’s it! Time management will…
Post Traumatic Growth…Can You Help Your Staff and Learners “Get” It? I am in the process of raising three “Generation Z” people. My children are 21, 19, and 17 years old. Most of us are aware of the different generation cohorts; The Greatest Generation that came of age in the Great Depression and World War 2, The Baby Boomers who…
I know I promised a simple explanation of two things in last week’s blog: a crypto digital wallet and a SMART contract. Well, things get messy sometimes. The more I research a SMART contract, the harder it is for me to come up with an easy explanation. So, I need another week to continue down the rabbit hole of SMART…
The promise of Web 3.0, which I introduced earlier, depends to a large extent on the blockchain. So let’s break down the blockchain. The easiest to understand definition of a blockchain that I found is from Coinbase: At its most basic, a blockchain is a list of transactions that anyone can view and verify. Think of the blockchain in terms of…
I believe it is imperative that learner-centered leaders are always peering beyond the headlights into the future. In particular, we need to pay close attention to the technological advances occurring in society that are coming down the road toward us. I am hesitant to use the word “technology” because it comes with a lot of baggage. All of us have…
I bet some of you reading this newsletter have danced around the feeling of being “burnt out”. The past 20 months have placed all learner-centered leaders in the middle of society’s culture wars. From masking controversies to quarantine issues, to vaccination, we are dealing with a lot of stuff. Interestingly, the more this whole pandemic thing drags on, the MORE…
I don’t know about you, but when I see kids having a blast in school while they are participating in well-designed learning experiences…I get fired up! Recently, I got fired up over something I saw and came up with these three principles of learner-centered leadership. 1. Kids are more than numbers. Our world today attempts to quantify everything. Because algorithms play such…
When our kids were young, we took them to the Outer Banks In North Carolina for beach vacations. I can still remember Anna as a 1-year-old rolling around in the sand looking like a sugar cookie! We rented a house on the beach that had a sand dune between the house and the ocean. Since we rented the same place…
We all love to have problems facing us all day at work, right? Well, if you do not agree with this statement, let’s look at the value of problems through the lens that Dan Rockwell suggests. You see, problems can be used to help move your organization to become better, as well as help with your own interpersonal growth.So let’s…
I worked with Dr. Coiner when I was the superintendent at Penn-Trafford School District. Dr. Coiner was an excellent learner-centered leader then (10 years ago) and is an even better leader now! This week I was catching up with Dr. Coiner and I asked her what advice would she give a new principal who was just starting their job. Her answer…
I was thinking of statistics the other day. Here is something that I find interesting. The chance of a student being shot to death in the United States in a school shooting is 1-614,000,000 (based on data from 2018). For context, the chance of winning the Powerball lottery is 1-292,000,000 And yet…We spend millions of dollars on school resource officers…Because…
When I was a teacher, a group of my teacher friends and I organized 2 field trips a year for our 7th and 8th graders. Every Fall we would take a day trip to New York City. In the Spring we would rotate destinations between Washington DC, Baltimore, and Boston. We raised money for the trips and it was a…
l “Remember, the act of schooling is an inherently political act.” –Dr. Bill Boyd Let’s be honest; politics makes us uncomfortable at times. After all, we just want to make decisions for the kids’ best interest and move on to the next thing. The rub occurs when there are competing visions of what is in…
Here is something to think about. In all of my experience and all of my reading on leadership, 1 characteristic stands out for leaders who get things done. Want to know what it is? It’s is simple to understand, but difficult to implement. Great leaders adapt strategy to meet the specific context of their situation. Go be awesome!
Do you have a book in your life that you continually go back to and read again and again? The books that can continually draw you back are important. These books are important because the concepts, stories, or insights gained from reading the book are continuously relevant for your life. Books that stay relevant are “evergreen” books…books that (like the…
I am going to get right to it in this post. This post is not meant to be a research-based paper. It is only some thoughts to help make you think.I have been thinking a lot about two different spheres competing for defining the purpose of education in the United States. The first sphere consists of the communities in which…
There are things in life that are simple, and there are things in life that are complicated. Leaders who have a clear understanding of their vision and purpose, coupled with strong personal, professional, and leadership goals find that simplicity is prevalent. For example, suppose you are a leader of a school district and a vendor comes to you with the…
Title of Book: Top of Mind Author of Book: John Hall Year Published: 2017 What is unique for learner-centered leaders: This is not a book that a typical school leader will pick up and read. The audience for the book is marketing professionals. However, I keep referring back to the tenets in this book frequently as I go about my…
Today’s blog post in an exert from my book School Leadership: Learner-Centered Leadership In Times Of Crisis. I know this sounds weird, but I was rereading my own book yesterday and discovered some things that I really liked! One idea that I discuss at length in the book revolves around being future-oriented, or reactive, and compliance-driven or agile. At the…
Outlook on LIfe What is your outlook life? Are you a “glass is half full” or a “glass half empty” kind of person? This is no small question, I realize. There is also no judgement associated with whatever you answer. The truth is that we probably spend some time staring at the old glass and see it both ways, depending…
Questions to consider. How much time do you spend in quadrant #4? Actually, track your time for a day and see what quadrant you spend most of your working day. I know today I have spent way too much time in quadrant #4, which is not good for the organization I work for, the people I work with, or me. How…
Title of Book: Win Art Work & Succeed At Life: 5 Principles To Free Yourself From The Cult Of Work Author of Book: Michael Hyatt & Megan Hyatt Miller Year Published:2021 Book “Highlights” What is unique: I (or you) should not be surprised that there are five principles the authors discuss to help give you a work-life balance…after all, the…
The Board President of IU8, Tom Bullington, and I have a great working relationship. I consider him as much as an education leader as I am. He shared something with me yesterday when he and I met for lunch that will show you why he is an education leader. To set the stage for what I am going to share,…
Title of Book: The Expansion Sale: Four Must Win Conversations To Keep and Grow Your Customers Author of Book: Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer Year Published: 2020 What Is Unique Let’s get the elephant out of the corner of the room and talk about it right away. This book is meant for a business audience. Specifically for businesses that want to…
Learner-centered leaders want to get things done. Creating the conditions in which the school system starts to focus more on the learner is incredibly rewarding. It is also complicated. Failure to realize your dreams for your school can happen if you are not careful. Avoid these two pitfalls while leading change in your school, and you will increase your chance…
Those of us involved in trying to change schools to become learner-centered know how difficult that change can be to implement. I am always on the lookout for books and podcast episodes that help me understand the change process. I just completed reading the book The Catalyst by Jonah Berger. I found it very helpful (and valuable) as I think…
What does it mean to be “leadershipped out”? Here are some signs that you might be suffering from this condition: Do you know that feeling that you are on the cusp of being overwhelmed? That’s leadershipped out. When you are in a meeting and the topic is something that usually gets you charged up, but you feel apathetic about it…then…
The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. –John Dewey In the first post in this blog series, I claimed that there are two purposes of schooling: babysitting and high school sports. In today’s post, I want to envision a world where schooling…
My Brother and Critical Thinking My brother works as a foreman for a pipe-laying crew. He mostly puts in water and sewer lines. He has some great stories from his work. It is interesting the people he has to deal with, the regulations he has to master, and the problems that arise every day. What I find interesting is that…
Ripping the Band-Aid Off This post builds off an earlier post entitled “The Old and New Story of Education and Schooling.” Over the next few blog posts, I will develop my ideas further. I am going to preface my thesis by saying that I am optimistic about the direction of learning and education. I believe we are heading in the…
Here are some comments I hear all of the time from teachers, principals, superintendents, and anyone else that aspires to be learner-centered. “Where do I start?” “There is too much to do.” “How do I not get overwhelmed?” Let’s get something off the table right now…these are not excuses! I believe these are all valid concerns that are impacting people…
A Story This week I had the honor of participating in a dissertation defense (congratulations Dr. Jim Hollis!). The topic of his research was chronic absenteeism. Dr. Hollis interviewed young adults who were chronically absent when they were in school which means they missed more than 18 days of school in one year. The stories of their lives, and why…
A Story Is “leadership” something that you are born with or a skill that you can develop? In other words, do you just throw up your hands and say, “that’s the way I am” and not try to build your leadership skills. In the two previous posts, I laid out a way for school leaders to develop their own leadership…
In my last post, I discussed the importance of developing your leadership philosophy and the first four questions to get you started. In this post, I will share with you the final seven questions that will help you create your own leadership philosophy. What do you have to learn? The next three questions help build your learner-centered leadership philosophy by…
My new book talks a lot about learner-centered leaders developing a leadership philosophy. A leadership philosophy is crucial for any leader who is attempting to institute change into their school. Your philosophy will guide your decision-making process and clarify what is important or not as you work with your staff and community to bring change to your school. Your learner-centered…
This post is “Part Two” to last week’s blog post about a moral imperative that school leaders have to society. Since last week, I have had time to reflect a little more on the topic. It is so important for us as school leaders to shift our mindset to reflective thinking because that is the start to thinking about our…
Michael Fullan’s book, The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, has been a foundational text for my career. When someone asks me what my “why” is for my career, I always say that I believe it is our moral imperative to provide the best learning opportunities for each learner, every day. The idea that resonates with me the most in the…
I had the pleasure to sit down with a group of OUTSTANDING elementary teachers last week. I periodically meet with this team for a reality check. In my position, it is easy to become too “theoretical”. As a school leader, you can’t forget that the decisions you make actually have to be implemented by teachers! I appreciate meeting with this…
I have never been too keen on doing “New Year’s Resolutions”. Besides the fact that I have a hard time sticking to them, I just feel they are too artificial. I can’t help but think how silly my New Year’s Resolutions made in January of 2020 would have looked after March 13th when all schools were closed in Pennsylvania. A…
We live in a world of data. Maybe it’s more accurate to say, we live in an era of extensive data gathering. Our cell phones gather data about us, corporations gather data on their customers and products, governments gather data on the effectiveness of programs, farmers gather data about weather patterns and crop rotations, the list goes on. Schools Produce…
Let the handwringing begin. I read today about the shock that “studies” are showing that students are “falling behind” as a result of remote learning. Really? Do you need to do a study to have this revelation? Instead of a study, just ask any educator or parent and you would have found out that students are not learning at the…
Today’s Reality Our society is in the middle of significant disruption. COVID-19 is only the latest manifestation of this disruption. The disruption has its roots in the societies move away from industrialism and toward post-industrialism. This blog post (or this blog writer) cannot give justice to the entire academic field dedicated to the post-industrial world. However, I can (and will)…
I know that the pandemic is grinding us into submission. There is disruption in every sector of the economy. I have written about the effects of COVID on school leadership and management. On top of everything else, the unnecessary politicization of the pandemic is difficult for everyone. The only thing I have to say is…Thank God for Kids! Leave it…
The political world today is filled with two political parties that are in a race to the bottom. There is no guiding philosophy in either party for the betterment of average American citizens. Platitudes and elitists mumblings from both the right and the left “don’t put supper on the table” as my grandfather would say. I am sickened by the…
As many of you know, I have been working on a book about school leadership for over a year. The urgency to finish the project accelerated after the COVID-19 related school closings happened. I am currently working with a team of editors and designers to put the finishing touches on the book. I anticipate that the book will be published…
The following blog post comes from ideas that are in my forthcoming book, School Leadership: Learner-Centered Leadership in Times of Crisis which will be published in December. Becoming a learner-centered school leader is easy in concept and difficult in practice. believe me, I have experienced the difficulties involved in making this transition. I believe there are three key mantras you…
Freedom versus obligation. I was in a discussion on Friday with my friend Duff Rearick when the topic of freedom came up. Now, there have been books, dissertations, and entire careers in academia dedicated to defining freedom. This short blog post is not going to try to answer the question, “What is freedom”. What I am going to do (hopefully)…
The following are my thoughts on the effects of COVID-19 on our education system. This comes from my experience in Pennsylvania working with school leaders throughout the Commonwealth. #1 Educators are now frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19 In the Spring when COVID first impacted us, the frontline workers were our health care professionals who treated us, the workers…
There sure is a lot to get stressed about these days…and I’m not just talking about what is happening in the education world! The bottom line is that there is so much change, uncertainty, and chaos in the world right now that it is easy to “just get by”. Worse yet, we may find ourselves sleepwalking through the day doing…
Is Busy a Badge of Honor? Let’s face it, the last six months have been “busy” for educators. Our schools and communities have undergone changes and challenges that 12 months ago would have been unheard of. While adapting to these changes, students, teachers, administrators, and parents are forming new habits and mindsets to deal with the changes. The result of…
“Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I have listened to Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Mountaintop” speech dozens of times over the years. The concepts that he talks about in the speech resonate as well today as they did in 1968 when he gave the speech. Recently, I was listening to the speech again…
This post was inspired by the Not So Boring Newsletter that is linked below. Although the newsletter is not about education, I adapted some of the content for the education sphere. Have you seen something like this happen (or has this happened to you)? You get a great idea that would be the best thing that ever happened to schooling…