A locked down school in response to a “potential” safety threat no longer makes the news headlines. School lock downs happen too frequently these days. But, that does not make locking down a school a daily routine. It isn’t. Enacting … Continue reading
Calculating a School Lockdown: A Thank You
Bull Roar Meter – A New Basic Skill
Reading, writing, arithmetic and a Bull Roar Meter. Should these be our new basic skills for an educated child? I hope so. We readily recognize that reading, writing and arithmetic endure as necessary basic skills in the education of every … Continue reading
What Do You See? What Do You Think? Good Questions Always
What do you see, what to you think When I sit with grand daughters at our local park looking at the sky and horizon over the waters of Green Bay, they can anticipate two questions. “What do you see?” And, … Continue reading
“Tell Me” and “Show Me” If You Want To Be Understood
I can hear Robert Shaw’s voice. “Do ya folla’?”, Quint, the shark-hunting captain of the Orca, asked Martin Brody (Roy Schneider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) in Jaws. “Do ya folla’?” was Quint’s way of checking if the Sheriff and … Continue reading
Five Dimensions of an Organizational Selfie
How are we doing as an organization? Are we successful? Are we doing a good job? How do we know? Perhaps we need an organizational selfie; a snapshot using data not pixels. Smile! In our selfie culture we are accustomed … Continue reading
Two Rules: Administer the Policy and Do What Is Right for Children
“Rocks in the pocket” eventually cause most school administrators to leave their current position, wrote Jerry Patterson in The Anguish of Leadership (2000). Rocks are negative baggage. They are the unfavorable stories attached to a person’s reputation by those who … Continue reading
Myopic-Tending Educators Must See Digital Reading Clearly
Educators are chronically myopic by choice. We also tend to favor the rear view mirror. Let us enlarge our vision to be forward thinking and see learning to read from multiple formats as our desired goal for all children. As … Continue reading
The Public Gets What It Settles For – Stop Settling Low
Louise Sawyer (Thelma and Louise, 1991) taught us “You get what you settle for.” Hearing Susan Sarandon voice these words many years ago, I found that they apply all too well to the many situations in public education today where we have settled for low … Continue reading
Don’t Choose To Be Your Own Obstacle
In a culture of “we/they”, the issue of “they” can dominate thinking and action to the extent that seldom are things of any common good ever accomplished. When a mind is fixated on oppositional thinking, it is difficult to engage … Continue reading
Us Is The Middle of We and They
Why is finding middle ground difficult? There are reasons. The first is that the generalizations that accompany positions on either side of the middle are easier to articulate and to empassion. The second is that from the middle you must counter … Continue reading