Cheating is a plague upon schools across our nation, and it appears to be on the rise. During my time visiting schools, 21 in all, private and public, during my 2008 good high school blogging project, I saw often observed cheating– sometimes blatant, “public,” shameless cheating in front of me. But as severe...
Heidi Hayes Jacobs: ”If you’re not updating your curriculum, you are saying that nothing is changing.” “Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of school administrators who responded to a recent survey said 1:1 computing classrooms where teachers act as a coach for students are the future of education.” (T.H.E Journal) “Innovative teaching supports students’...
Among my great goals is to assist my students, and my colleagues, in becoming better “entrepreneurs” in the best and broadest of senses: creative, innovative, risk-taking, initiators who bring new and great things to life, solve problems, and enrich our world. I want for my students, and for my colleagues and myself, to...
“Dad, there’s your favorite word again,” my son calls out, a tad cynically, when we are driving to school listening to NPR and a reporter uses the word innovation. I am aware that my son, and others, believe this word has become too much of a buzz-word and perhaps a fad, too often...
Back in February, Larry Fliegelman posted here a fine piece entitled the OODA loop: Do you Do it? In that post, he wrote I would bet that Jonathan Martin, like John Carver and me, keeps his school’s or his personal vision on the wall of his office. At my last principal position, I kept...
Jen ratio: the total positive interactions among people in a shared environment divided by the negative interactions; a measurement of the social well being of any shared environment. (Dacher Keltner, What’s your Jen ratio?). Promoting positive and supportive school cultures and environments is among the very highest of our priorities as principals and school...
While interviewing a teaching candidate a few weeks ago, I asked her about her own digital citizenship and the ways she uses Web 2.0 tools to create, collaborate, and communicate online. Her answer was swift and firm: Oh no, I would never do that; I know that it is dangerous and deeply problematic to...
Many principals deliver remarks at graduation; some principals, heads of schools, and superintendents may find themselves needing to deliver not one but several addresses over the space of just a few weeks. For many, surely, these opportunities are nothing but a delight; for others, perhaps, they can be the source of stress. I have...
Step aside Waiting for Superman and Race to Nowhere. For an up-close and analytical film about building a world-class education which thoroughly prepares all students for careers and citizenship in the 21st century, take the 62 minutes to view the new film from Tony Wagner and Bob Compton: The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising...
Does our community follow us on Twitter? Do tweeting and blogging serve as valuable school leadership vehicles? A lovely conversation is happening this month about the question of principals and other school-leaders blogging and tweeting. Does this really add value to school community and to our students’ learning? Or is this just a...
At a conference recently, I was approached and asked for advice about resources for using skype in the classroom to connect with schools in other countries. I started to answer the question with a specific suggestion (the Cool Cat Teacher’s Flat Classroom) when I stopped myself and took another tack in my advice-giving. Instead,...
According to a College Board webinar I participated in last week via EdLeader21, as part of its promised “revamp” of the AP toward depth over breadth and better integration of the skills and content, the College Board/ Advanced Placement program is developing a new online platform called “the AP Lifeline.” It is intended to be a...
“Shouldn’t we test it now? Shouldn’t we? I want to try; let me put it on top now.” The boy circled the table, holding the marshmallow, being a bit of a pest. Perhaps a tad hyper, even, he kept asking, testing the patience of his team-mates who very responsibly maintained their focus on the...
Standing in the back, I watched the screens. The students had seen me come in, and a few clearly clicked away from the screen they had open as I entered. I am, after all, their principal. Our excellent teacher was lecturing. Our excellent students were note-taking, almost all of them typing notes into...
“Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and nearly everyone is enjoying the lovely feeling of spring-time in the air; nearly everyone, that is, except for educational administrators, for whom spring is the most miserable time of the year.” John Pedicone, Ph.D. Dr. John Pedicone is the new Superintendent of Tucson Unified School District, where...
The New York Times published Sunday a fascinating article about research at Google on effective management qualities, and it seems worthwhile for those of us who are Principals (and aspiring Principals) to consider the list’s applicability to our leadership practice. The piece makes clear that this is not just advice from Google’s leadership, but...
Ten days ago I had the extraordinary good fortune to see and hear Salman Khan speak to an audience of 3000; I will say it was genuinely a “heartthrob” moments in the field of education, as if seeing the Beatles at the Ed Sullivan show. I think Khan is a true transformer, a visionary,...
Thursday evening, our school (St. Gregory College Prep, Tucson, AZ) hosted a screening of the documentary film Race to Nowhere and a panel discussion afterwards. Here I am offering my own first reactions to the film; in subsequent posts I intend to share some of our panelists’ responses and explore the suggestions from the film’s...
Steven B. Johnson writes in Where Good Ideas Come From about the revolutionary power of social media such as Twitter to advance ideas and innovation in a myriad of fields, and it has been fascinating to see this concept in action in the swift spread over the past six months of the practice of flipping...
As Tony Wagner argues in his essential book, The Global Achievement Gap, I too think that we need to be very concerned that our secondary and college students are not learning what they need to be learning. We can be deceived: they may go through the motions of learning, and the bright ones (bright...
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