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November is an in-between month. Early fall's brightness begins to fade. The trees let go of what they no longer need. The days grow shorter. The air changes. Before the rush of December arrives, November offers something quieter. A little space. It is easy to treat this month as a bridge between Halloween and the holidays, a stretch of calendar to hurry through while we make lists, finish projects, plan gatherings, and prepare for everything that comes next. November deserve

I have been thinking about the phrase “a culture of love.” In education, we talk often about culture. We talk about belonging, psychological safety, relationships, trust, collaboration, and community. We seem far less comfortable using the word love in professional spaces. We should be using it more. I know a culture of love is possible because I am watching and listening to a school community describe itself this way. Not as an aspiration. Not as a slogan printed on a wall.

Actualizing something is different from internalizing it. Actualizing means I can do it. Internalizing means I understand it, believe in it, and begin to carry it with me even when no one is watching. In education, we often confuse the two. A teacher can actualize a new instructional strategy because it appears on a walkthrough tool. A team can actualize a new protocol because it is required at every meeting. A student can actualize a behavior because there is a reward attach

“Good thinking is as much a matter of disposition as it is of skill.” ~Shari Tishman We spend a great deal of time in education teaching students how to think. We teach them to analyze, compare, question, interpret, evaluate, and draw conclusions. We create lessons that require critical thinking, design assessments that measure it, and develop rubrics to describe what it looks like. We place considerable emphasis on whether students can think critically. I wonder how often we

Some weeks, life feels especially full. Not necessarily because we have more to do, though we may, but because we know something meaningful is unfolding. A milestone. A beginning. A moment we have imagined for a long time that has suddenly become this week. In weeks like these, it's easy to become consumed by the details. The lists. The timing. The things that still need to happen before everyone arrives and everything begins. Mindfulness asks something different of us. Notic

Some phrases get tossed around casually among friends, in private conversations, or in moments of frustration. Calling a colleague a “pain in the ass” during a professional meeting is not one of them. The problem is not simply that the phrase is crude. The problem is what the phrase communicates. It tells the room that asking questions can make you a problem. It suggests that challenging a process can make you difficult. It turns professional inquiry into a personality flaw.

An ideal version of co-teaching exists. Two teachers sit together regularly. They plan the lesson from beginning to end. They anticipate misconceptions. They decide who will model, question, monitor, redirect, assess, and provide feedback. They reflect afterward and adjust the next lesson together. Then there is the reality in many schools. The co-teacher is supporting multiple classrooms. Schedules do not align. Planning periods do not overlap. One teacher may be moving from

Civility Is Not an Outdated Expectation “Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.” ~George Washington, Rules of Civility, Rule 49 More than 275 years ago, George Washington copied a collection of rules about civility, respect, and how people should conduct themselves in the company of others. Rule 49 offers a remarkably relevant reminder for today's workplaces, organizations, and professional communities. Words matter. There is a difference betwe

The Trees Do Not Apologize for Changing They do not explain why green gives way to gold, rust, orange, or red. They do not ask permission to let go of what belonged to one season so they can step fully into the next. They simply change. There is something quietly wise in that. This time of year reminds us that change is not always dramatic. It can be gradual, almost unnoticeable at first. A little more color here. A little less daylight there. A cooler morning. A different rh

There are moments in leadership when "just do it" is exactly the right advice. Stop overthinking. Make the call. Take the first step. Move the work forward. There are also moments when "just do it" becomes something entirely different. It becomes an order. Push the initiative through. Get people on board. Make the change happen. Do not spend too much time worrying about resistance. Do not slow down for questions. Do not wait for collective understanding. Just get it done. Tha

Something is compelling about the fact that the magnetic compass came before the modern mechanical clock. Before we became exceptionally good at measuring how long something took, we had already developed a tool to help us figure out where we were going. I think there is a lesson in that. We spend an enormous amount of time measuring time. How long did the lesson take? How quickly did the student finish? Are we on pace? How many minutes are left? When will the initiative be i

“Forever is composed of nows.” ~Emily Dickinson We spend a lot of time thinking about later. When things settle down. When the schedule opens up. When the project is finished. When the kids are older. When work becomes less demanding. When we finally have more time. The problem is that life keeps happening while we are waiting for the right moment to begin noticing it. Emily Dickinson’s words are such a simple reminder that forever is not some distant stretch of time waiting

You Do Not Need to Make Every Moment Productive Fall has a way of filling the calendar quickly. School starts. Activities return. Meetings multiply. Weekends become scheduled. Even the quieter parts of the day can begin to feel like opportunities to catch up, get ahead, organize, answer, plan, or prepare. It becomes easy to measure a day by how much we accomplished. That can be a dangerous habit. Not every quiet moment needs to become productive. You do not need to answer one

If You Always Call on the Fastest Hand, You Teach the Room Something The question is asked. A hand shoots up. Then another. The teacher calls on one of them, the answer comes quickly, and the lesson keeps moving. It feels efficient. It may even feel like engagement. Over time, though, the room begins to learn something that was never part of the lesson plan. It learns whose voice counts. It learns how quickly an answer needs to arrive. It learns whether thinking time is actua

“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg We tend to celebrate change once it is visible. The new program. The new habit. The new direction. The breakthrough everyone can finally see. What we do not always notice are the hundreds of smaller decisions that came before it. The conversation that shifted someone's thinking. The question that challenged an assumption. The decision to try something differently, even when no one else noticed.

One of the most beautiful things about fall is that the trees do not all change at once. They do not all turn the same color. They do not even respond to the season in exactly the same way. As daylight shortens and temperatures cool, chlorophyll begins to break down. The green fades, revealing pigments that were there all along, while other pigments develop in response to sugars, light, weather, and the biology of the tree itself. That is why one tree turns gold. Another turn

Schools make an assumption that deserves more attention. If we put two qualified adults in the same classroom, collaboration will naturally happen. It sounds reasonable. It is also rarely that simple. Two teachers. A teacher and a teaching assistant. A content specialist and a special educator. A CTE instructor and an academic teacher. An ENL teacher alongside a classroom teacher. Whatever the configuration, adding another adult changes the classroom's potential. It does not

One of the hardest things for a practitioner is watching someone struggle when you know exactly how to fix it. You see the student hesitate. You hear the silence after the question. You watch someone start down the wrong path. You know the answer, the next step, the better strategy. Every instinct says: help. That instinct comes from care. Care, though, can quickly become rescue. Difficulty alone does not build courage. Supported uncertainty can. The distinction is important.

“Recognition is a reward in itself. Any form of appreciation, even a small word, is important.” ~ Vikrant Massey We spend a lot of time talking about feedback as a tool for growth. We talk about what needs to improve, what could be stronger, what should come next. Recognition deserves the same attention. A quick “I noticed.” A sincere “Thank you.” A simple “You handled that well.” A moment of saying, “What you did mattered.” Those words can seem small to the person offering t

A particular kind of energy belongs to adolescence. It is bold. Fast. Experimental. It hasn't yet had enough time to fully understand certain things. That energy is part of growing up. Adolescence is supposed to include testing boundaries, taking risks, trying on identities, questioning limits, and discovering just how capable you might be. The challenge is that we often confuse two very different things that can look remarkably similar from the outside: recklessness and fear