Principles of Principals

I've tossed some wet blankets on the school reform fire.  Stirred the pot if you will. In the spirit of TNTP's recent request for more solution-oriented dialogue, versus ad-hominem attacks, we're going to work with the embers we have, beginning with the most powerfully elected body in the United States.   The School Board . I've said it before. You heard me correctly.  At the true grass roots level, there's not a more influential group of people than a school board.  In all their diversity of membership and governance, they select leaders, respond to community needs, and sometimes follow policy...but I digress. To be brief in writing, here are 4.5 solutions for school boards who want to sustain school reform measures; BE AUTHENTIC - In a recent LDS conference talk, Dieter Uchtdorf told an anecdote about lemon juice . In it, this person robs a bank believing no one can see his face .  You see he applied lemon juice to it, believing it would hide him....

You probably already know this...let's review for those who do, and expose for those who don't. Surgeons weren't always professionally schooled and papered by Universities.  They were barbers who amputated - and most of their patients died by infection from the amputation.  But not for the reasons you think. If you were to select a barber to amputate, you did so based on the individual wearing the most experienced looking smock.  I mean, who would want to pay for an amputation from a person wearing a white smock = no amputations. The dirtiest, bloodiest, rankest smocks denoted the most prolific barber.  Also, it turns out, the ones with the highest mortality rates. When in the course of research, it was determined that gory smocks and mortality rates correlated, you'd think that barber-surgeons would listen to their colleagues who preached sanitation as a simple life-saving measure. You'd be wrong. For them, was it about saving lives or clinging to the r...

The Hippy-Cow Way I remember early in my career asking a question something like, "Why don't we try [insert idea here]?"  And the quick reply, "Because this is the way we've always done it." Wow. 2020 is teaching us that the way  we've always done things..does not work.  Yeah.  The age-old rut that can trap us all. Frustrating isn't it? As a child growing up in the Aspen Valley, I remember traveling many miles along Highway 82.  Glenwood to Carbondale, then to Basalt, and on to Aspen.  Two lanes most of the way, it was and is the main route connecting all of these Rocky  Mountain towns.  The drive can be breath-taking in the Fall. And most take this route because, well, it's the route we always take. It's familiar. Safe. Known. Well traveled. You get the idea. There are other ways to get where you're going. Roads less traveled that hold great sites and great reward. One of my favorites is the Hippy-Cow Way. Known only to our fam...

See the news lately? Sorry to hear that. I get caught up in the promulgation of enmity, just like you. I hear people say "Down with the evils of capitalism." whilst swilling Starbucks. I hear people say, "The news these days.", while quoting some talking head. Put down the cup - buy local. Put down your phone - look at me. Why do we prop up, and tear down, these false idols? With discernible patterns of lust and hate we vilify and praise our own personal heroes and sheroes. Then when they stop thinking like us, we cancel them, tear them down, or abandon them. I burned a poster of Lance Armstrong once. I still own all of his books. I'm just like you, maybe. Except maybe not. I do not watch the news.  I do not have social media accounts that are active (with the current  exception of LinkedIn). I loathe the need to be first, and politically correct  culture. It's global house gossip, like family members trying to be the first one to call everyone a...

Today, we are honored to host a recognized professional educator, Mr. Bill Denham.  Mr. Denham holds a Bachelor's from Northern Arizona University, and a Master's from Marshall University. He is is Veteran of the Arizona Army National Guard. Bill teaches Spanish at Riverside High School of Kanawha County Schools , he is a father of 4, active in local politics, a published author, devoted partner, an award winning barbecue chef,  and an exceptional friend.  All of the resources we discuss today are found on his site, profedenham.com for free. Dr. J: When it comes to virtual classrooms: as a high school Spanish teacher, what do you want parents to know and do?  Profé Denham : I want parents to know that one of the best things their students can do to learn a second language is to read . I would also add that this is true of all levels of language learners, even the most novice of them. With proper scaffolding, such as providing vocabulary in context or reading materi...

1959 marked the first time a goal tender wore a mask in a professional hockey gamed.   Jacques Plante started a trend that now features glossy air-brushed, graphite, high-impact resistant head gear for all hockey players and tenders. It was revolutionary.  Crude.  A game-changer.  It took 125 years and an unknown number of gashes, accidents, tramautic-brain injuries and career ending blows to the goalie's dome.  Why? Listen, I'm not really here to write about why it took so long for goalies to protect their brain buckets.  I'm here to draw an analogy about why it takes us so long to innovate, reform and solve issues in education.  So I offer some examples of education's equivalent to the hockey mask.  Innovators. 1.  Three considerations for disruptive innovation in blended learning formats found at the Christensen Institute . They've been doing this for quite some time. Pay attention. 2.   Jeffrey Bradbury , @TeacherCast, ...

On Evolving Leadership Styles in Education, Then and Now In 1936, Kurt Lewin published Principles of Topological Psychology .   In this seminal work, he posited the heuristic equation B = f(P, E) where B is denoted as a person’s behavior as a function of P, or a person ’s E, meaning environment .   The pioneering formula gave rise to the notion that an individual’s present situation was gravely important when considering their behaviors, more so than one’s past.   When Dr. Lewin and his colleagues wrote on patterns of aggressive behavior and used elementary-aged student groups for analysis, it may be beneficial to consider the present circumstances of those children’s lives and the lives of the authors and how it informed their behaviors during the experimentation, documentation and publication of the results.   This will advise both the revolutionary notions they put forward, and the between-war industrialization of the world’s major powers.   I...