For those of you who are not active on Twitter or do not follow me (what??), my post a few days ago that responded to Ira Socol's thoughts about "grit" and "slack" has touched off what I think many of us feel is a truly important discussion for educators. Some of our best educational thought [...]
On this easy Sunday morning, I read a Tweet from Ira Socol, teeing up Martin Luther King’s “Mountaintop” speech for students. I last saw this speech at the National Civil Rights Museum and MLK memorial in Memphis. It is not as well known as his “I Have a Dream”; it is longer and filled with [...]
There is the traditional and relatively easy way of developing strategy for your school. And then there is a non-traditional, more complex, and RIGHT way. Which is better in a time of rapid change? Traditional strategic planing and implementation goes something like this: Brainstorm ideas. Group those ideas together. Make sure all of the bases [...]
I have read and commented on three or four recent blog posts related to leadership in schools. I went back through some of my own harvesting of leadership research and found these short reflections on leadership practices that resonate at effectively innovating schools: Leading innovation is always best done from the front. Innovation is not [...]
On a warm Christmas morning, my first thought is to count my blessings, thank my wide circle of friend/colleagues for the year, and wish everyone a happy return on the day...which of course I do! Then I think what I would really like for Christmas... So deep are the divides of the human experience: north [...]
In fine-tuning the chapter on creativity chapter in my upcoming book, I wanted to write about the explosion of opportunities that teachers and students now have to make that leap from consumers to creators of knowledge within their learning process. I was honored to interview Neeru Khosla this morning; Neeru is the co-founder and Executive [...]
I am on a "what does Google have to share with a K12 school" kick. Today, via a Tweet from IDEO, I saw this post from David Garvin of the Harvard Business School with a summary of the semi-annual feedback that Google managers get from their direct reports. Check it out. What can schools learn from [...]
Last fall my EdJourney took me to 64 schools via 10,000 miles in my Prius. This fall it was six cross country round trip flights in seven weeks, with many stops along the way, to work and learn with something like 1,500 teachers, students, administrators, and parents who care deeply about the future of our [...]
For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter or who missed the tweet, I want to proudly direct you to a blog written by my daughter on the subject of bullying. Cassidy is a member of the US National Women's volleyball team, and when she is not competing for USA Volleyball or professional [...]
In a series of short posts and videos from Fast Company, we see how Google is using space to create collaborative working and learning environments. I watched several of these, and see enormous parallels to how we can transform the K-12 learning process by re-imagining the use of physical space. Here are some of my [...]