After I finished this essay, I realized that I am not gonna be able to say all that I need to say in one post. This will be the first of what I hope will be several essays about the value of true diversity – not the forced kind but […]
Category: Organizational Structure
Let Teachers Work Independently on Professional Development Days…..
I cannot count the number of wasted ours that I have spent in really bad professional development. I know that today many teachers are sitting through professional development today – well planned, maybe useless, and very, very, very boring. I would guess that adds up to tens of thousands of […]
Moneyball and Daring to Change the System
I love movies. This is one of my favorites. As an educator, Moneyball brings to life two people who I would like to see rise to power in education – the innovator and person with money who can make it happen. When those two characters finally meet, we will then […]
Safety Protocol and Inclement Weather Decisions
Many years ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to a former superintendent. He was old, and he was wise. It was snowing outside. We started talking about whether schools should be open the next day. He shared this with me. He said, “Rob, I don’t send busses out in […]
Time is Money: Stop Wasting Time w/ Frequent and Long Duration Meetings
In education, we need to learn to be prompt, efficient, and to the point with meetings. We have a “meeting” problem in education – meaning that we meet far too often and far too long when we do meet. People don’t like to work for inefficient organizations. I would work […]
Group Think: A Destructive Cultural Practice Within an Educational Organization
Best Practices. When you hear that phrase as an educator, you are about to implement something in your classroom whether it works or not. It is a phrase that conveys that others have vetted this idea, and that the idea is unimpeachable. Usually those best practices are accompanied by vague […]
New Teacher Advice Column: Find a Great Mentor
The single, greatest influence (of what kind of teacher you will be) is the person you train under as a student teacher or intern. I was blessed to work with two of the best teachers on the planet as an intern. Later, during my first years of actual teaching, I […]
Does Classroom Experience Matter When Selecting Administrators in Education?
Does courtroom experience matter when hiring a prosecutor? Would we hire a plumber who had no experience fixing pipes? Would any of us want a phlebotomist who was drawing blood for the first time? Nope, nope, and NO! Then, why are we hiring people into administrative positions in education who […]
Elite Minds by Dr Stan Beecham: A Book Review
How Winners Think Differently to Create a Competitive Edge and Maximize Success. If you want an out-of-the-box PLC book study topic, I think this would be a great option. That title gets my attention. I listen to a pretty wide variety of podcasts. Magnus and Marcus On Coaching is a […]
Thoughts on School Improvement Plans (SIP)
I believe in school improvement. If we are going to maintain relevancy in public education, we have to have continual renewal. However, we must make sure that we are actually writing plans which promote actual improvement which includes long term retention of learned material. Many of these SIP plans look […]