Where There Be Dragons can be considered the Gold Standard of experiential education. I travelled with three other colleagues to their “Rocky Mountain Seminar” to learn more about how we might begin to lean into risk and how we might deepen our ability to learn service before giving service. Nestled into the foothills of Boulder Colorado, it…
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Reading this book is simultaneously inspiring, knowledge-building, frustrating and enlighting. Grant Lichtman’s latest book builds off of his previous #EdJourney, which I have reviewed here before; however, where #EdJourney is focused on examples and the “what” of lighthouse schools, Moving the Rock focuses on action. In fact. Young Zhao (read more HERE) reviewed this book…
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The Monday versus Someday dilemma: If we plan for a great, ambitious goal to happen in two, maybe three, or even five years, we can forget about getting started. If we implement new initiatives every Monday without a vision for what it will look like in two, maybe three, or even five years, we lose…
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I took up this book in an effort to contribute understanding to a shared language around school transformation. This book, written by James Rickabaugh and Tony Frontier, was published in 2014, but much of what they say still has important implications to educational transformation, and the forces acting on education’s systems and structures. This book…
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U2 is one of my all time favourite bands. Beautiful Day is one of their biggest hits. We are hoping that our version of “Beautiful Day” in education is just as successful in our community! This year, my school is attempting some new – we are calling them “Day 9”s. These are 4 calendared days…
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Project Based Learning is far more than simply setting students on a path to complete a project on a given date. Rather, Project Based Learning is a complex pedagogy that requires attention, a shift in one’s role as a teacher and one’s mindset. I believe that Project Based Learning is a combination between student skills and…
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Clayton Christensen, in his latest book “Competing Against Luck”, puts innovation under the microscope. Like all things under a microscope, minutiae is revealed, studied and made clearer. He frames his book as an answer to below: Is innovation truly a crapshoot? Or is innovation difficult because we don’t know what causes it to succeed? You…
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If we already know WHY we need to change education, and WHAT changes need to be made, then we have to really examine the WHY…Why hasn’t it changed? What are the obstacles to real change, and from where are these changes originating? Answers to these questions are becoming more and more clear for me, thanks…
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Quiet is the Sound of Leadership… Quiet, by Susan Cain, is expertly researched, and written with a very digestible, intimate voice such that any educator would be hard pressed to not recognize themselves, a student, parent or administrator in her stories and recounting of people’s experiences. Full disclosure, on took the QUIET TEST and found…
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What does “Student Voice” look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? The answers aren’t always comfortable – sometimes these answer can be downright problematic. And sometimes not. If I’ve learned one thing over the last two weeks, it’s that student voice is the thread that keeps the culture of the…
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