In my last post, I may have stepped on some toes. That was a mirror moment. This one is a practical moment. You lead a building that rarely slows down. Buses run late. Parents call. Staffing gaps appear at 7:12 a.m. There are compliance deadlines, safety concerns, staffing decisions, and a hundred small issues that […]
Lead the Learning: Three Moves That Work Read More »
This message is not an easy one, but it is a necessary one. It is written out of love for educators and educational leaders with the knowledge of how hard your job is daily. Sometimes though, we have to step back and look ourselves in the mirror and face some tough looks back. Hopefully that’s
Cover Your Toes For This (Maybe) Read More »
Would you keep seeing a doctor who only ran tests to prove you were sick, treated you coldly, insisted you didn’t want to get well, prescribed the same pill to everyone, watched half their patients stagnate, and stopped learning new techniques two decades ago? Of course not. We expect physicians to examine symptoms, diagnose with
Would You Go to THAT Doctor? Why Schools Need a Hippocratic Shift Read More »
January does what January does. Parking lots at the gym overflow. New journals crack open. We swear off sugar, swear in kale, swear we’ll finally keep a routine or long-term goal. Schools do it, too: fresh calendars, fresh bulletin boards, fresh PD slides. And then the “fresh” wears off. The treadmill clears out. The journal
2026: Replay or Revise? Read More »
Here’s the scene: seventh period, chairs in neat rows, every kid “on task.” Except the task isn’t learning; it’s tapping, scrolling, chasing the next tab. The room looks productive. It’s quiet. Orderly. But if we pressed pause and asked, “What did you learn? Why is it important? And How do you know you learned it?”
When the Glow Impedes the Grow Read More »
If the school were a body, the classroom would be the heartbeat. The pulse. The place where oxygen becomes motion and purpose turns into progress. Bells move people. Classrooms move learning. Every initiative worth keeping points back to that room. Every schedule that matters protects that room. If it is the most important room in
The Most Important Room Read More »
There was a time when I judged a day by my choreography. The mini lesson fit the plan, the slides clicked forward, the room felt orderly, and the stack of graded work on my desk grew smaller by the hour. I moved from piece to piece and called it progress. Then a quieter measure began
It’s Not What You Do; It’s How You Think About What You Do Read More »
Walk with me for a minute. Imagine you go door-to-door in your school building and ask twenty teachers a simple question: “What are the core components of quality, high level, daily Tier 1 learning?” Would you hear the same answer twenty times? Or would you collect twenty different versions of “it depends”? If you aren’t
Making Tier 1 a Game Worth Playing Read More »
I love a good magic trick. Not the rabbit-in-a-hat kind, the kind where a room of thirty suddenly feels like fifteen and no one left. No smoke. No mirrors. Just clarity. When the task is crystal clear and kids can picture what success looks like, something wild happens: about three quarters of them take the
Creating Success with Success Criteria Read More »
A guarantee is different from a hope. Hope is silent and private; a guarantee is visible and shared in public. Parents don’t send learners to us so they can hope for learning to happen. They send them because learning is the job, and the daily, core Tier 1 experience every single learner receives from us
Guaranteeing Tier 1: The Promise We Keep in Public Read More »
