I work with leaders and faculty members at independent schools to help them frame out a process for change… I am most interested in the means–a smarter process to hold the ambition of complex schools striving to make impactful change.
Creating a Progress Culture One Pilot at a Time: An Idea Revisited Through a New Example
Today I am making a pledge to abandon that metaphor (“Abandon Ship!”) as it seems to give us a ready-made excuse for slowing down, or giving up on, priorities we have named as being mission-driven and strategic. The metaphor slows us down because it traps our thinking—it becomes an accurate metaphor because we have chosen to believe it. From now on schools are not big ships. Schools are challenging enough without having them have to be ships as well.
Poetry as Unique Communication
Soon my students and I will focus our attention on Sonnet 73. We have to wait for just the right day, and unfortunately for an English teacher trying to work with some sort of course plan, I cannot identify that day until it arrives on the lawn, buried in an assortment of leaves.
#TBT Role Models are Teachers Who…
[For #TBT this week, we are headed way back into the archives to something I wrote in October 2011. The topic of what it takes to be a great teacher in a fine independent school remains an important subject for me, particularly as we head into the hiring season. While we will not have many […]
The Annual Fund–A Vital Expression of School Affiliation
In the photographs I have included here, I have written the words our faculty wrote when asked to pick a single word they associate most closely with St. George’s Independent School. They picked their words at the same time they made their pledges to the Annual Fund. They are a powerful collection of words, and […]
The Adult’s Challenge after the Tragedy in Orlando
I had a different #tbt planned, but once again my plans were thwarted by current events–this time at a High School in Florida where, as it stands now, seventeen people have lost their lives. It is not OK. We are failing. Please read through the full link–particularly parents who want to find a way forward […]