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Apparently, I can find a leadership lesson anywhere. This time, it happened in a World War I trench. I have been listening to Angel Down as part of my somewhat ambitious journey to read every winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, including the years when it was still called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. If you are equally intrigued by slightly unreasonable literary goals, join me. I could use the company. Somewhere in the listening, one phrase lodged itself in my brai

As a child, I rarely took things at face value. I asked questions. I looked for the exception. I tried to examine an idea from several sides before accepting it. My sentences often began with some version of, “What about this?” or “What if that happened?” or “Okay, but then what happens when...?” The response was not always enthusiastic. I was told more than once that I would be “great on the debate team.” Other times, the question was more pointed: Why did I always have to b

Schools are surrounded by people. Families come through the doors. Community organizations attend events. Businesses sponsor programs. Students sit in classrooms every day. Teachers work side by side. Leaders meet with teams, committees, councils, and stakeholder groups. There is a lot of proximity. Proximity, though, is not the same thing as partnership. I first heard Dr. Amanda Crowell use this idea in the context of business networking, but it immediately landed differentl

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston At the start of a new school year, we tend to think about what the year will bring. What if the more important question is what kind of year we will help create? Will this be a year that asks students to stretch, wonder, struggle productively, and discover what they are capable of? Will it be a year that gives them answers, not simply in the form of content, but in the form of confidence, belongi

For years, we have pushed skills further and further down into the earliest grades. At the same time, we have stuffed the curriculum with more content, more standards, more assessments, and more “must-knows.” We told ourselves that earlier meant better, more meant stronger, and faster meant prepared. When children could not clear the hurdle we built, we labeled them. Behind. Struggling. Below benchmark. At risk. Not proficient. In need of intervention. Sometimes children do n

Agricultural education is sometimes treated as a specialized opportunity reserved for rural schools, career and technical education programs, or communities surrounded by farmland. In reality, every community is connected to agriculture through its food systems, land use, environmental conditions, local businesses, cultural traditions, workforce needs, and patterns of access. For school and district leaders, fostering agricultural education does not necessarily require buildi

The first article I ever had published was a really big deal to me. This was back in the day, when I was working as a Model Schools Staff Specialist at our "County" BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services). I had written something; someone thought it was worthy of publishing, and there it was. My name. My words. My ideas. In print. When the editor asked for my byline, I included my name, title, and the organization I worked for. The article was published, and when I

Flexibility Is a Practice A flexibility class is built around a simple idea: we become more flexible by practicing flexibility. We stretch carefully. We pay attention to resistance. We learn when to push a little farther and when to pause. We understand that progress cannot always be rushed or forced. The same is true in life and leadership. Flexibility does not mean having no boundaries. It does not mean bending until we break, changing our values, or adjusting ourselves to

Educational leadership rarely comes with the luxury of addressing one issue at a time. There are state mandates to interpret, reports to submit, initiatives to implement, budgets to monitor, meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, and emergencies that arrive without warning. Most days, nearly everything placed in front of us is important. Important and priority are not always the same thing. Something can be important without requiring our immediate attention. Something can be

In my presentations about teacher leadership, I often return to the idea that strong schools do not grow from leadership that sits in one office. They grow when leadership is intentionally cultivated, shared, supported, and sustained throughout the organization. I have also asked participants to consider whether we are truly creating more leadership or simply distributing more work. That distinction matters. Teacher leadership should not be about extracting more from capable

Why are there mirrors in a dance studio? The obvious answer is that dancers need to see themselves. They need to check their posture, placement, alignment, timing, and technique. They need to see whether the movement they believe they are making is the movement they are actually making. The mirrors are not there so dancers can simply admire themselves. They are there to provide information. A dancer may feel that an arm is fully extended when it is slightly bent. A turn may f

A student completes a lesson successfully. They answer the questions, participate in the activity, and demonstrate the skill on the assessment. Then, a few days later, they encounter the same idea in a slightly different situation and seem unable to recognize it. Teachers are often left wondering: But we just learned this. The challenge may not be that the student failed to learn the skill. The challenge may be that the student has not yet learned how to transfer it. Transfer

My parents were watching a video of my daughter’s competition when they noticed something happening far in the background. Across the gymnasium, well behind my daughter, someone threw her arms up and cheered when my daughter’s name was announced. The moment was small enough that I had not noticed it at first, but my parents did. They wanted to know who she was because her joy was unmistakable. It was my friend. She and her athlete live in another state. They compete for anoth

Thoughtful Thursday “It is nice to have valid competition; it pushes you to do better.” ~ Gianni Versace Competition has the power to bring out the best in us, but only when we allow it to inspire rather than intimidate us. Valid competition is not about hoping someone else fails so that we can succeed. It is about recognizing excellence, respecting the work behind it, and allowing it to challenge us to raise our own standards. The strongest competitors are often the ones who

When we are little, adults love to ask us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For a while, the answers are usually a mix of fantasy, imagination, and whatever feels exciting in the moment. Astronaut. Singer. Veterinarian. Teacher. President. Broadway star. Professional athlete. Sometimes all of them in the same week. For me, the answer did not really begin to solidify beyond fantasy until middle school, when I met Mr. Clausen, my 7th grade science teacher. He taught s

When you walk into an interview, you are not just answering questions. You are telling the story of who you are, what you bring, and why the people across the table should be able to visualize you in the role, thriving, contributing, and solving problems they may not even know how to name yet. That is the power of a well-told professional story. It helps people see beyond the resume, beyond the title, beyond the bullet points, and into the real human being who can lead, build

As we celebrate the Fourth of July and look toward the 250th anniversary of the United States, it is worth pausing to think about what freedom really asks of us. Independence is not only a historical event, a fireworks display, or a long weekend. It is an ongoing responsibility to participate, to listen, to learn, to question, and to help build a country that lives closer to its ideals. The story of America has never been simple. It is a story of courage and contradiction, sa

Sometimes the most difficult leadership moments are not about one behavior, complaint, meeting, email, or conflict we can see. They are about the pattern underneath it. The coercive cycle of interaction occurs when two people or two groups become locked in a repeated back-and-forth pattern in which behavior escalates, reactions intensify, and eventually someone gives in just to make the moment stop. In school leadership, this can happen between administrators and teachers, ce

Years ago, I was standing in line at the "happiest place on Earth" with my kids. We were away. We were together. We were supposed to be in one of those rare pockets of time where the outside world fades and your full attention belongs to the people right in front of you. My phone rang. It was the middle school principal calling about grant applications. Not a crisis. Not an emergency. Not something that needed to interrupt a family trip. I still do not know why I picked up th

“All students should be able to learn and thrive at school no matter where they come from, their race, sex, gender identity, or disability.” , National Education Association This statement seems simple. Most educators would agree with it immediately. The challenge is not whether we believe it. The challenge is whether our systems, practices, and daily decisions consistently reflect it. Thriving is about more than attendance. It is about more than test scores. Thriving means s