Data-driven instruction blew out the speakers in my car today. No joke. The day started like any other: coffee, commute, Power Point creation, teach, plan, teach, lunch, teach, and then . . . my new release period to manage
Read MoreNothing Special
Jim has been teaching 1st grade for twenty years. Opportunities to work collaboratively with his colleagues should be as common to him as his annual bulletin-board-supply shopping trip, and yet over the course of his 20-year tenure, Jim has spent countless hours in, what he and most of his colleagues would describe as, “the fancy-man-in-the-suit-with-the-power-point trainings”. If Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule holds true, then Jim and so many others have become experts at feeling patronized and isolated.
Read MoreOne Question Secretary Duncan…
Monday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, discussed other countries outpacing America in the educational arena. Secretary Duncan reinforced his message with the following bold statement: “The great ideas in education are always going to come at the local level. What
Read MoreSurf or Drown: Let’s Hunt TTWWADI’s!
I recently had the good fortune to hear Ian Jukes share his thoughts on education's struggle to keep pace with "Exponential Times." I found his presentation particularly interesting because a book I recently read identified exponential growth as the most important
Read MoreJust Shoot Me.
At the most recent annual AZK12 Summer Leadership Institute, I sat with a small group of colleagues from around the state to discuss the future of public education. At least I would refer to them as colleagues. They would refer to me as “all-that-is-wrong-with-public-education” or, more simply, the devil.
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Leave a Light on For Me
Legislation, budget cuts, propositions, neighborhood walks, phone banking, Reduction in Force (RIF) notices, political action, national standards, evaluation, accountability. What do all of these words and phrases have in common? They have all been heard by teachers during their
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