I recently had a conversation with Dave and Doug Sikkema, twin brothers, who are not only fun to talk with, but both of which have an abiding love for learning. I was intrigued at the combination of classical learning and digital innovation in their writing, work, and lives. Dave quotes, Hicks in his article “Playful …
As defined by the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASDC) School climate refers to the school’s effects on students, including teaching practices; diversity; and the relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and students. My personal definition of school climate is the temperature of the school, “controlled” (think thermostat) by the structures that are in place, the …
Review of Prior Blogs: In April 2016, I started a blog series entitled Building an Engaged School because of the misery of educators in their work, lack of stability in school leadership, and the ensuing educator shortage (which is now upon us). The blogs I wrote were intended to help school boards, school leaders, and …
Introduction: As someone who espouses innovation in Education I’ve always been skeptical of the technocrats who push the cure-all that technology should be for Education. My qualms have always been twofold, first technology as the replacement for the relationship between teacher and student and second the lack of relationship between learners in a communal drive …
Introduction: In his recent Better Schools newsletter Chuck Evans shared data on the slight growth of the private school sector where he suggests that the economic downturn of 2008 may have been a good thing as it forced school leaders through a re-calibration of expectations and re-assessing of educational experiences. Therefore, I chose to reach …
Introduction: T.S. Eliot once wrote, The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. […] The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates. This quote and some recent interactions regarding creativity in schools led me to …
Ashley Berner, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, recently pondered the question in an Education Next article titled Education for the Common Good, “Why should taxpayers support the education of other people’s children? In democracies, the answer is because these children’s lives (including workforce participation and social well-being) and political involvement (understanding …
Introduction: Even though this is the third blog in a series of interviews I’ve done with innovative leaders in Education, it is actually the first interview I did as I’ve learned to try out my own innovations on friends. Jon Eckert and I graduated from Wheaton College in subsequent years, but didn’t become great friends …
Introduction: Recently, I began to reach out to friends and mentors to help me think through leadership, innovation, and educational issues that continue to provide me great passion for the work I get to do within our profession. My first attempt at this sort of recorded blog was with Rex Miller on Leadership and MindShift, …
At a recent education conference, I was struck by a distinction made by John Couch, the head of Apple’s educational arm. He referred to the millennials as digital natives and those of us who are generations above the age of 30 as digital immigrants. To his point, he talked about how we needed to reimagine …
