February 17 , 2021 /

ILLUSTRATED INTENTION

Some people who know me might be surprised to learn that when I was invited to speak to a team of educators in an outstanding school, it was somewhat daunting for me. I speak to many school groups including faculties, boards of trustees, leadership teams, parents and students. The topics range over a wide variety

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May 4 , 2020 /

COUNTING ON YOU: 35 YEARS AGO AND TODAY

“Those of us within certain traditions and cultures have, for centuries, had a commitment to using our talents and energies to help make things better.  We do this by living and working together in communities. We must look at ourselves, our nation and the rest of the world, we must look at where we are,

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February 12 , 2020 /

TRANSFORMING K-12 SYSTEMS

No one said it would be easy and a number of people have made various suggestions, many of which ended up with tweaks around the edges. Much about the system, the delivery and the environments remain too much the same and are not engaging the majority of students in meaningful learning experiences.   Part of the

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January 10 , 2020 /

BUILD

Carla Silver, a friend and colleague, Executive Director of Leadership and Design, (www.leadershipanddesign.org) chose her #OneWord2020 and it is BUILD. While it may not come as a great surprise to those who know Carla and her team’s work at L+D, that word BUILD connected with my #OneWord2020 TIME in ways I had not imagined. One

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October 25 , 2019 /

TEN IMPORTANT LESSONS FOR EDUCATORS

Reflecting on a long and continuing career as a professional educator, here are 10 lessons I consider among those that are important.  Understanding this part of the definition of “important” may help: “likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.” This doesn’t mean there aren’t more lessons.  These are some of mine,

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September 15 , 2019 /

OPTIMUM LEARNING: ENVIRONMENTS & OPPORTUNITIES

Choosing a school in some quarters is controversial and I understand why different people respond differently when the topic of school choice comes up.  School choice has gotten a bad rap and there are some good reasons why.  One of the reasons is that charter schools, new to the scene starting in 1992, have had

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