Tag: teachers

Happy Valentine’s Day! In addition to February being the month for lovers, it’s also the month to recognize and celebrate the contributions African-Americans have made to this country. I’ve gone on record about my skepticism of only giving a month to recognize the significance of any group – African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ+. It seems that…

A big problem with our public school system is that they have established goals over the past 50 years that might not equal the overall outcomes we want for our students. Performing well on high stakes tests, high attendance rates, and excellent accountability ratings have been the goals, but have they led to making our…

When I was a middle school principal, we paid special attention to our middle school boys. It wasn’t the case we ignored our female students, but we knew that our young men, especially those who were black, brown, or poor, demanded extra care over the three years spent with us. Recently, I came across a…

“You need a license to buy a dog or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt reamin’ asshole be a father.” – Keanu Reeves’s character “Tod Higgins” in the movie Parenthood I was a public school educator for 35 years – 25 working for a…

When it comes to “school choice,” most state legislators “play it close to the vest.” To date, very few governors or state legislatures have utilized education savings accounts in a way that would really open up learning possibilities for America’s families – especially those black, brown, and poor families. Take for example Iowa. The Iowa…

During my 35-year career as a teacher, principal, regional superintendent, and educational non-profit leader, I must have visited thousands of classrooms. We usually focused on alignment (whether what was being taught was aligned with the state and local learning standards,) rigor (how strenuous was the learning,) and engagement (were the learners engaged with what they…

We spend too much time in traditional school focused on teaching, and not enough time focused on learning. Colleges of education spend little time on learning theory. Adults in the classroom are trained more in “what” to teach versus a real understanding of “how” young people learn and the strategies involved to make young learners…

In 2009, Simon Sinek delivered a TED talk titled “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” Today, nearly 64 million people have viewed Sinek’s talk. Let’s take a look at what Sinek had to say about leadership and see how it might be applied to creating a new system of learning. Sinek begins his talk: “How do…