The recently passed tax reform seems to be crowding out Christmas. Instead of stories of acts of kindness that seem to be on the uptick this time of year (I just experienced a rather small but maybe significant one on an airplane where a person gave up his first class seat to one of our armed services personnel who was … Read More
Jon Eckert: Innovation, The Novice Advantage and Collective Leadership
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 until we reconnected a few … Read More
Becoming an “Unexpected” School
Most of us don’t have the opportunity that Karin Chenoweth has had over her career and particularly the past decade – to visit many schools and synthesize what works. Starting with the question “What does it take for a school to succeed beyond expectations?” and then focusing on neighborhood schools, where low income students and students of color are learning … Read More
Kim Marshall: A Conversation about Innovation, Leadership and Teaching Quality
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, and I hope to share … Read More
For the Love of…
For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:10) “If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work but rather, teach them to … Read More
Re-imagining Christian Schools: Immigrants and Natives (Part 1)
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 schoolings with the fast-changing technological … Read More
Norm and Norms
If your television viewing history includes the eleven-year period from 1982 – 1993, you probably recall a sitcom titled Cheers. The show is set in a bar named Cheers in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals met to have a drink, relax and socialize. The refrain from the show’s theme song quickly became the tagline, Where Everybody Knows Your … Read More
3 Questions on Leadership and Mindshift: Rex Miller
Introduction: In the first blog I wrote for CACE, The Power of Connectivity: I Gotta Guy, I shared my thoughts about the Christian school network: In my experience in Christian education there is a specialist, expert, or innovator in every part of the country, and over the past four years as Vice President of the Christian Coalition for Educational Innovation (CCEI) I … Read More
Deeper Learning in Christian Schools
The phrase “Deeper Learning” was coined by the Hewlett Packard Foundation in 2010 to define what they saw as skills necessary for the “jobs of tomorrow.” They defined a set of competencies students would need to compete globally and to become engaged citizens at home in the 21st century. The impulse to create these competencies came from the realization that … Read More
Introducing the Speaker Line-up for Powerful Practices: Implementing Deeper Learning in Christian Schools Conference!
Our Planning Team for the upcoming Deeper Learning conference is very excited to have had a great response to our request for proposals! We have exceptional leaders coming from many places across North America to share their learning and lead attendees into new understandings. We have organized our conference around five strands shown below. Our confirmed workshop leaders and their … Read More