If what I am about to do is not constructive, I need to discard the thought. If what I am about to say only tears down with no possibility of building up, it is the wrong way to go. When I think back to the over twenty-five years I spent as a high school teacher…
Category: Teacher
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 25 | A Father’s Advice Lived | January 17, 2024
My father, who professed a dislike of school and who I never heard anyone call “teacher” was one of the greatest teachers I ever had. I have shared this post before but, as my father’s birthday is tomorrow and, for me, these messages never get old, I share it again today. My father was a…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 24 | Arrogance and Leadership | January 10, 2024
Arrogance and good leadership are… incompatible. The old adage “oil and water don’t mix” is demonstrably true. Head into your kitchen. Find some oil. Put the oil in a glass filled with water. See what happens. Go ahead. I will wait. See? What did I tell you? Oil and water do not mix. I would…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 23 | ONE WORD 2024 – Embrace | January 3, 2024
I start the year 2024 with the word EMBRACE. Over the course of the past five years or so, I have taken part in a movement among the educational community (and the community writ large, I am certain) to select a word around which to center the upcoming year. I have engaged in this practice…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 22 | The Gift of Our Work | December 20, 2023
Our work reaches beyond us. It reaches through time. It reaches into the future. EVERGREEN POST We do not get tired of good Christmas songs. Well, I do not, anyway. I look forward to their repetition each year. When beginning to compose a post for the week before Christmas this year, I realized I had…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 21 | Humility | December 13, 2023
A colleague this week asked me if I could distill good leadership to one quality. Over the course of this first semester, I have had the opportunity to consider – deeply – what I believe are the core qualities that make up a good leader, that inspire a leader who truly serves others. A colleague…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 20 | The Undone | December 6, 2023
… there are other things that need tending to as we approach the end of the semester – … things that need to be done. How did it get this late in the semester? I suspect teachers all over the Western world have similar reactions to the first week of December. Where did this semester…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 17 | Conspiracies Among Us | November 29, 2023
I believe we are too quick to ascribe intricate motives to what others do. As I write this, it is the week after the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. With each anniversary of the event, more information comes to light or, perhaps more precisely, old information is recycled and repackaged…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 16 | Share Thanks, Liberally | November 22, 2023
Share the love. REPOSTING THIS OFFERING IS AN ANNUAL, THANKSGIVING TRADITION. I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT. I am often amazed at the amount of effort it takes to keep a school up-and-running. When I consider it, I am in awe of the people power necessary to get the lights on, keep them on, unlock the…
Teach and Serve | Vol. 9, No. 15 | Unexpected Gratefulness | November 15, 2023
It is my sincere wish that you have many, many things in your life for which you are thankful. As we gather next week for Thanksgiving in the United States, our thoughts, hopefully, turn to those things for which we are grateful: family, friends, good health, good jobs… It is my sincere wish that you…