Maybe because the summer heat has hit even San Diego, maybe in sympathy of the drought in the rest of the country, I thought I would share this piece, one of my "California In Spring" series I have written on short breaks over the last four years. If you have never been alone deep in [...]
The new school year is not far away. Teachers are thinking about their first day. Innovative teachers are thinking "How can I start of this year differently? How can I truly start to shift the learning experience? How will my class this year be more focused on the critical skills we need our students to [...]
Teachers: you hold the secrets. You are an enormous neural network of experience about how we learn; all we have to do is access that knowledge and answers leap out at us. If the answers sound complicated, reduce them to their simplest terms. Andrea Kuszewski, writing in Creativity Post, reports on a series of studies [...]
How many great jazz musicians create their masterpieces working alone, meeting with other members of the group once or twice a month to see how their own riffs merge with those of their collaborators? None. Many of use have been talking and writing about breaking down silos in schools. Modeling this change in how we [...]
Innovation is a word that we all now use: “schools must innovate in order to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world”. But before we start something, we should know WHY. Jeffery Phillips, writing on the Innovation Excellence blog site notes five key factors that are driving that need to innovate; my commentary is [...]
I had a great meeting yesterday with Bob Ogle, Head at the young Pacific Ridge School in north San Diego County. Eight yeas ago this school was an idea; five years ago it was a collection of portable buildings on a hillside; today it is fully-enrolled, grades 7-12, with an impressive array of intelligently designed [...]
I am catching up on my blog reading after taking all of about three days off. If anyone ever questions the pace at which our knowledge base is increasing, take a few days off of reading the outputs of thoughtful educators; we are always behind no matter what we do to keep up! Bennett, Kern, [...]
I have been thinking and writing a lot about the need to introduce the discussion of value proposition into how we think strategically about our schools. The consideration of institutional value is quite different than the consideration of strategic goals as practiced by most schools. Importantly, value directs us outward to the view of our [...]
We work at schools to make a difference in the lives of young people, not to teach them what we know, but to help them find their passion to learn what will be meaningful to them, and to apply it to their future lives. As an administrator, I don’t get the chance to engage students [...]
How many speeches by graduating high school seniors have you heard in your career? Tens? Dozens? There are three varieties. One offers insight into the heart of the speaker. The second suggests that the class should go out and do wonderful things with their lives and talents. The third looks back and summarizes the yearbook [...]