As a young turnaround principal in East Palo Alto, California, I struggled with nerves. In my first two years, I woke up every morning with butterflies in my stomach, nervous about the challenges that I would encounter that day: another deadline missed to the state...
School culture impacts everything we do as educators, and reflects our ability to meaningfully engage students. How is the school culture in your building? Below are questions to help you reflect. Think about the first person people see when they enter one of your schools. Does...
I train coaches in schools around the country to support teachers with student engagement. This year, more than any year before, I have been consistently surprised by how many students have their phones out in middle and high school classrooms, and how difficult it is for teachers to...
As we work with educators around the country, we like to size up their perception about classroom management. Here's a quick way to see how well you align with the research. 1. Classroom management is about A) ControlB) CommunicationC) Creating quietD) Empowerment The correct answers are B and...
This post originally appeared in ASCD Express on May 9, 2019. "Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists they become the best they can possibly be." — Rita Pierson While teenagers sometimes act as...
This post originally appeared in The 74 on September 18, 2017. With the election of our first black president, many clung to hope that we had entered a post-racial America. The recent events in Charlottesville proved that we are not as far along in this journey...
This post originally appeared in ASCD Inservice on February 27, 2017. As a turnaround principal of a high school in Washington, D.C, I lost more students to violence than I ever would have imagined. After losing five students in one year, I made a vow that I...
In a country where one in three black males will be incarcerated at some point in their lives (Equal Justice Initiative, 2018), who do black males run to for support? The statistics are alarming. According to NAACP.org, African Americans/blacks are incarcerated at more than five...
Travel to schools across the country, and you’ll see it’s clear that teachers are working hard and truly care about their students. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing this job day after day. When I walk through buildings and talk with teachers, I hear and sense...
For more than a year, I have been struck by the ongoing school discipline “wars.” Sometimes the fight seems as much a war of semantics as of approaches and beliefs. Perhaps it is not a new fight, but for the first time in my two-plus...