It’s no secret. Education is a “mile-wide, inch-deep” endeavor with new ideas about what’s best cropping up in district initiatives all over the nation. Some people attribute this to caring deeply about students and wanting what’s best for kids. Others say the world is changing quickly and it is our responsibility to keep up. Whatever
We’ve all been there. Sitting at a meeting or a grad school class where the agenda is ten miles long, broken up into either short little choppy increments or hour-long blocks without a break in sight. Half of the items on the list seem to come from out of nowhere or could easily have been
This past Thursday I attended a training on evaluating administrators. As much as I enjoyed talking with my peers and listening to the presenter, the part that was most meaningful was learning about a concept called, “Wildly Important Goals” from the book, The Four Disciplines of Execution by Covey, McChesney, & Huling. The beginning of the
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” – A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens Now maybe I’m being a bit dramatic using the opening line of a book about the dichotomy of people’s lives during the French revolution to describe my inner turmoil as I drove to work on the
This post is mostly a reminder to myself, but if you are an educator like me you might appreciate this message as well. It’s that time of summer when “Back to School” ads seem to start popping up almost everywhere. When I was a teacher this signaled the time when I started thinking more heavily
Just got done with my almost four year old having an epic tantrum at gymnastics class. The cause? I made her put on her shoes and socks when she came out of class before she did anything else. I know. I’m the worst. That’s not what actually caused the epic tantrum. That was more of
Busy. Busy. Busy. That one word has permeated my vocabulary since I took over as interim principal a few months ago at Emerson Elementary School. I’m not just talking about myself. With state and district testing, about a million end of the year activities as well as normal teaching responsibilities I’ve watched my staff and
This post originally appeared here on the LaunchPad: Official Blog of TeachBoost. Over the past decade, innovation has become one of the more popular buzzwords in education. Thought by many as a path to make students successful or “future ready,” innovative teaching practices are highly sought after by leadership at all levels. The problem is,
Every morning I have about a thirty-minute commute to work from my home in Wheaton. Most mornings my routine is pretty similar. After giving Alexandra a big hug and a kiss (sometimes 4 or 5 depending on what mood she’s in), I hop in my car, order my morning coffee and listen to whatever music
I’ll admit it. George Couros is one of my favourite (spelling intended) people in education. Not only is he skilled at telling a captivating story that can cause both tears and inexplicable laughter, but his ideas about education are thought-provoking and real, grounded in his own experience or ideas he has recently read about or
