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.
For Parents—A Dad (also a School Head) Wondering About Grades
Parents can get a bad rap because we come across as obsessed with our children’s grades, while neglecting a far more appropriate concern with our children’s learning and critical skill building. Perhaps we are simply misguided as to how to best express our interest in what is happening at school and its relationship with the […]
One Body, Many Parts: An Opening Convocation Reflection
[I gave the following homily at the Opening Convocation of St. George’s Independent School on its Collierville Campus two days after the violent and tragic white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.]Good morning!Good first morning of the 2017-2018 school year. A particular welcome to our sixth graders just joining us for the first time on this campus, as well […]
Differentiating Traditions From Bad Habits #tbt
It may be helpful to think of it this way: imagine that every school has a ledger that marks the long-term debt of bad habit against the revenue of tradition. My fear is that an audit of that ledger in many of our institutions might reveal that bad habits are costing us more than we choose to recognize.
School People and Highway Engineers: A Slightly Uncomfortable Reflection on the NAIS Annual Conference
I began to wonder to what extent are school leaders like the highway engineers that Bryson lampoons. It was not a comfortable wondering.
My answer: perhaps we are more like highway engineers than we would like to admit. Maybe we in fact ARE highway engineers.