If we truly believe that all educators can and should be leaders, we need to develop those skills that bake “leadership ownership” into the dough of the whole organization. In my ongoing work with the leadership team at Pacific Ridge School, we got to do just that today, while testing some new tools I have [...]
I don't do this often, but the Twitter feed is alive today with ideas about creativity, trans-disciplinary study, and idea generation, so I am going to re-post a blog from last year: Many of us are talking about the need to shift learning in the direction of creation, rather than consumption, of knowledge. Students and [...]
Looking for something to start off the school year, put up on a big screen, turn the volume way up, get a smile on everyone's face and feel that, yep, there is a reason to come to work each day and feel a ray of optimism in this crazy, fast, thorny world? Here's my nomination! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM
In the long march of human civilization there has, in just the last few hundred years, developed a line of demarcation that will prove the success or failure of human societies in the future. It is not a line between rich and poor, liberal or conservative, north and south, Occident and Orient, or believer (of [...]
Today may have been my most productive learning experience ever between 6-8 AM, with the probable exception of that morning on the north side of the Annapurna range in eastern Nepal… Mount Vernon Presbyterian School in Atlanta is holding their second annual Fuse conference (Twitter #fuse13) today and tomorrow. It is a design thinking experience [...]
I came up with a set of professional goals before I graduated college, and they have never left me: work with smart people to tackle difficult problems, create elegant solutions, for something of value. This week has been another link in that chain! All this week I have been able to sit in with a dynamic team [...]
This is a bit late, but as promised, the video of my Google Hangout webinar two weeks ago with our friends at Whipple Hill. It is about a 20 minute conversation about change in schools based on my trip last fall and many workshop interactions this spring. Thanks to Whipple Hill for co-sponsoring my work. [...]
One of the reasons I agreed to work closely with The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence in the future is that they really know how to swing a bat. And here is a great example. The Martin and Presbyterian Day School have agreed to bring the widely-acclaimed Project Zero of Harvard, in conjunction with the Center [...]
A couple of days ago friends at Parish Episcopal School in Dallas reached out with an interesting request. For a publication this summer they were looking for short expressions of what their school, and somewhat by definition, schools in general, will look like in 40 years. This is what I jotted down for them. In [...]
Two days ago I wrote a post about how zero-based strategic thinking will replace our outdated model of long-range strategic planning. As promised I will offer my view of what forms that zero base for any school. A zero-based approach tests every assumption against the absolute core of the mission. This approach is critical at [...]