I just recently finished reading Todd Whitaker’s newest book, “Shifting the Monkey: The art of protecting good people from liars, criers, and other slackers.” For the record, I am a big fan of Todd and his work. He is also a pretty big deal on Twitter; he can be followed at @toddwhitaker. This book is a quick...
I believe that every person in this world has dreamed of having the power to be invisible. It would be nice to have the power to strategically vanish (if only for a little while). As nice as it would be…the power of invisibility does not translate well into the world of leadership. Visibility...
“Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere.” Source: Wikipedia Yesterday in a conversation with an elementary principal colleague, I allowed myself to become irritated. I wasn’t irritated with Bill. He seems to be a...
“Some organizations incubate companies – we incubate people. The mission of the Sandbox Network is to accelerate young leaders and help them have a global impact before they become 30.” http://www.sandbox-network.com/ “Imagine if a country’s assessment system measured the growing impact a young person has had on sustainability, environmental responsibility, equity or...
This interesting thought occurred during a conversation today. Are we living through a process whereby social media is finally breaking down some of the traditional divides that have kept education transformation suppressed? I suspect we are. What is twitter managing to do? Break down the barriers that have made it difficult for teachers...
Rwanda 2012 Reflection #4 – do you use your role for a higher purpose? As Principals, Superintendents or school leaders, do you use your position to try and ‘be the change’? It seems like a straightforward enough question – but probably one that bears a...
Rwanda Reflections #3 – ‘They walk straight past us’ Through this series of blog posts, I am seeking to process another profound experience – visiting Rwanda for the fourth time. I am also hoping to raise awareness of the educational needs of this country – particularly in the regional rural schools. And I...
Rwanda 2012 Reflection #2 – ‘We could and should have done more’ – Kofi Annan, 2004 A journey I have just spent 8 days in Rwanda in preparation for a summit I am organizing with some colleagues – Innovate Rwanda (www.scil.com.au/rwanda). During these days, I had the privilege of being invited into...
A valuable part of our professional journeys as educators is to look beyond our own experience and learn from others. One strategy that has worked very well for our circumstance has been to bend budgets so that we can recurrently send teams of teachers to learn from others. This strategy commenced a decade...
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein Earlier this week I began writing about the second new year for leaders. You can read the introductory post for more background information here. We have already admitted that the beginning of the school year has not been exactly perfect...
A few weeks ago my school district was visited by a team of educators from the Hallsville R-IV School District. Since my district is in year two of implementing Professional Learning Communities, we are interested in hearing from other districts on how they got started and their advice as we move forward. Though there was...
2011 has been an amazing year for me professionally – a year of great change at NBCS and a year of outstanding opportunities, travel and thinking for me. It has also been a year of new connections. I am going to try and capture some of the main insights during 2011 gained in...
Preface “Birds of a feather flock together.” How is it that various flocks of birds fly together in non-linear formation? How exactly do they communicate with each other to cut and cross paths in synchronized patterns? Is there a captain or a conductor or a coordinator? Do zigzagging birds rotate those roles of captain,...
Cross-posted at “The Wejr Board” blog. I recently had the honour of presenting to a neighbouring school district about my journey in developing on online personal learning network (PLN) and becoming a connected leader. The slides from the presentation are below but here is a brief (ok, this is LONG for a blog post)...
This summer, I wrote a post discussing the world of social media, and how our administrators need to jump in and lead our schools in this “new world”. Here is one of the things that I wrote in that post: There can no longer be an “opt out” clause when dealing with technology in...
A few weeks ago, Apple, one of the most successful companies around today saw their leader step down, presumably for health problems. Immediately, consumers were worried and stock dropped with the announcement. Obviously, many were worried about the fall of Apple with the leaving of their fearless leader, and you would see headlines such...
Two months ago I ventured to upstate New York to conquer the Indian and Hudson Rivers in the form of white water rafting. To say it was an awesome experience is an understatement. The weather was simply horrible, but it added to the mystique of our adventure. I was invited to participate in a...
“How do we get reluctant administrators on board with utilizing technologies to communicate, connect, and collaborate?” This is one of the most prevalent questions I encounter when chatting with educators on Twitter, through informal conversations, and in presentations I’ve shared. It came through loud and clear in the Connected Principals ISTE session that teachers...
“Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.” - Seth Godin This is one of my favorite quotes from the book Poke the Box (a definite must read for leaders). Leaders have a responsibility to initiate the drawing of maps that will move their organizations forward. Unfortunately,...
I wasn’t there. In fact, I was almost literally half-way around the world. It happened at the ISTE conference in Philadelphia, and I’m in Dalian, China. The session was called: What Does it Mean to Be a Tech-Savvy Principal? I followed along on the #cpchat and on a tool called TodaysMeet, but I commented...
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