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…
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…