Teach & Serve IV, No. 38 We Are Not as Special as We Think We Are April 24, 2019 Sometimes, in our recognition of our differences and in our celebration of what makes us special, we forget two important truths: there are thousands of schools doing very much the same work we are and we…
Tag: Leadership
Teach & Serve IV, No. 37 | Secrets, Secrets
Teach & Serve IV, No. 37 Secrets, Secrets April 17, 2019 If you say or write the word “confidential” without asking, each-and-every-time, “whose interest am I protecting by walling off this knowledge?” you are doing it wrong. There is power in knowing something other people do not know. There is magic in holding onto a…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 36 | Good Schools | Great Schools
Teach & Serve IV, No. 36 Good Schools | Great Schools April 10, 2019 I imagine Great Schools that passionately posit hard questions. I imagine Great Schools that redefine themselves as a matter of course. I imagine Great Schools that encourage creative dissent. It has been a few years since I first wrote on this…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 35 | Dying is Easy; Living Is Harder
Teach & Serve IV, No. 35 Dying is Easy; Living Is Harder April 3, 2019 Before we die on any hill – we should consider what living on the hill would mean. There are moments in our careers which we believe force us to take stands. There are incidents that challenge us – our morality,…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 34 | Our Burgeoning Toolbox
Teach & Serve IV, No. 34 Our Burgeoning Toolbox March 27, 2019 Educators are many, many things but (and after over a quarter century in the field, I know this for certain) the good ones are builders. Fair warning: I am an English teacher. I embrace metaphor. For four years, I had the immense honor…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 33 | Where Are Your Feet?
Teach & Serve IV, No. 33 Where Are Your Feet? March 20, 2019 Where do we center ourselves in our work? From where do we draw balance and power? From where do we operate? Where do we walk and with whom? Awhile back, I heard a leader I respect very much speaking about being present…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 32 | The Learning Portion of High School
Teach & Serve IV, No. 32 The Learning Portion of High School March 13, 2019 The time to work with our students, to learn with them, to help them become critical thinkers, to set them up for the next year, the next school, the next steps in their lives is too critical to give up….
A Journal of the First Year | Fifteen
7 | March | 2019 It is my intention to share some reflections on the highs, the lows, the excitement, the routine, the successes, the failures and everything in between which I experience the course of the next 10 – 12 months, my first months as a full-time principal of a high school. Writing this journal…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 31 | The Power of “I Don’t Know”
Teach & Serve IV, No. 31 The Power of “I Don’t Know” March 6, 2019 Excellent leaders know much. But they do not have to know everything. I am unsure when it was decided that a leader had to be the smartest person in any room, had to have each-and-every fact at her command, had…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 30 | I Know Two Things…
Teach & Serve IV, No. 30 I Know Two Things… February 27, 2019 I know two things: Some meetings are good; some meetings are bad, and the responsibility falls on the organizer of the meeting. In the Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog, the wonderful William H. Macy has a number of bon mots which…