Erik Ellefsen has served in education for 21 years as a teacher, coach, consultant, Grievance Chairman for the American Federation of Teachers, Dean of Academics at Boston Trinity Academy, and as Principal at Chicago Christian High School. He currently serves as an Academic and College Counselor at Valley Christian High School (San Jose, CA), a Senior Fellow for CACE, a Senior Fellow for Cardus, podcaster for Digical Education, and as Vice President of CCEI. Erik regularly organizes Christian school leadership seminars and speaks on issues pertaining to academic program, student leadership, and organizational development. He can be reached via email at eellefsen@vcs.net.
We make thousands of choices every day. Children do too. How do we help children choose well? The goal is to build character, the ability to make a good choice in any given moment. Sometimes we think that we’re building character in our schools when we’re actually building compliance. Do children choose the same thing …
Over the past decade, many of us have been delving into, reading voraciously, and discovering insights from the Cardus Education Survey. This research was first conducted in 2011 in Canada, but then was expanded to the U.S. shortly after. The research is focused on discovering the unique outcomes of Christian and non-religious independent school sector …
Since April of 2018, I’ve had an opportunity to visit more than 20 schools as a learner and observer, not as an employee or consultant. This opportunity arose because of two MindShift projects I’ve participated in, but also just out of my own curiosity. Rex Miller, in particular, encouraged me to find the “bright” spots …
Between the two of us, we’ve spent hundreds of hours at educational conferences throughout our careers. We’ve also had the humbling experience of having to coordinate a few ourselves. When thinking about conferences in Christian education, we would define most of them as “operational.” By that, we mean that the conference speakers and content focus …
Review of 2018 At the end of each year I put together a reflection of the year as well as a look ahead. See A Look Back and a Look Ahead 2018 where I shared the best of 2017 and themes for 2018. As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I love to hyperlink things, …
This past year, I’ve had the opportunity to start the Digical Education* podcast where I’ve recorded conversations with twenty-eight educators, innovators, or leaders. This opportunity has allowed me to ask questions about policy and practice in education that will allow us to be more successful in our work. Through these conversations, I’ve developed the following …
What is Innovation? When you think of the word “innovation,” what images or ideas come to mind? This is not a rhetorical question! Invoking the word “innovation” in education is a bit like challenging someone to a Rorschach test. When you look at the ink blot formed by the letters of that word, what do …
“MeTEOR stands for Methods, Tools, and Environments plus Relationships. It’s a true representation of our mission and vision to transform the learning experience.” – Bill Latham Introduction: Those who are familiar with my blogs and podcasts know that I am interested in the innovations that are happening throughout education, and I’ve had the opportunity to …
Introduction: I recently started following Corey DeAngelis on Twitter (@DeAngelisCorey) because of a battle of ideas he got into with some of the traditional education policy wonks that I also like to follow. I was impressed by Corey’s wit, his defense of not only school choice policies, and his knowledge of the research in regards …
Conclusion as the Introduction: Traditionally, an essay concludes with findings and ruminations, but for this blog I’m using a different approach as I’d like to frontload my comments before you dig into the information below. When I started this blog, my assumptions of leadership, which I’ve written about in many blogs are: School success is …
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