Principles of Principals

I have addressed three point five solutions for school boards that would help sustain meaningful reform.  Today, we tackle the school executive, the superintendent. The school superintendent.  All at once the educational ambassador to the community, and the policy advocate to the stakeholders.  It's a tenuous post, often held only for a short time - but all the same, quite influential.  While the $ is contextually high, and by that I mean higher than a principal, yet considerably lower for job a-likes in the private sector, the average 2.5 year stay impedes sustainable reform.  Sup's have narrow windows of opportunity. Don't be distracted...focus! They say that all a superintendent needs is a majority board, and they get to keep their jobs.  Bullocks.  What a red herring.  A very loathsome way to regard the role of an educational executive.  And yet, private sector executives face the same conditions.  Just ask me...

As a child, I was often deployed to spend my summers on ranches near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Before you say, "Oh wow! That place is beautiful!", which by the way it is, understand that this was very much a working vacation .  I love my family. I loved my time on the ranches. I was outside. I was free. I learned by doing. I was tutored by experts who cared deeply about me and about the work. The ranch and the animals treated everyone equally . There was diversity of experience and life. We were all included in the tasks. My grandpa's sister, Eula, kept sheep. Lots of them. This day was my day to help, while the others cut, raked, and bailed hay. One day while we were riding around in the flat bed Chevy, checking irrigation and fence, as we headed back to the pens, she was telling me about how she knew each of her sheep by their voice. I was inwardly incredulous, as they all sounded alike, echoing one another with their baa-ing. As we wound our way up the dirt road tow...

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....

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...

Today, I'm having a conversation with Mr. Jon Gentile of Educational Wingman . Jon is a gifted school leader with an uncanny sense of how to build trust. Many of us have similar stories of being thrust into roles for which we are wholly untrained, sometimes unprepared. It forces us to call upon a well spring of raw talent, to sink or to swim. Jon pulled several Michael Phelps-esque performances that still impact school communities by virtue of the the cultures he built. Unconventional. Brash. Sometimes a lot like a bucket of ice cold water in the face, albeit on a hot summer day, Jon brings love to the equation. Love for potential, for people. Jon : Dr. J, you asked me for possibly three scenarios, so lets see if I can separate.  But I’m going to start with what I call my Big Picture : First, let me talk about my  fundamental key points on relationships ;  Be genuine. I know who I am, I am loyal to my sense of self.  I am aware of gaps in my a...