Repost: How to Have ‘Courageous Conversations’ About Race That Can Help End Inequities in Our Schools
Courageous Conversations Training 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 as we had hoped, a […]
Repost: Do You Care Enough to Save a Life?
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 would tell all of my students, especially young […]
Caring About vs. Caring For
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 this. However, when it comes to what care actually looks […]
Punishment or Restorative Practices: The Only Two Choices in School Climate?
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 decades in education, I feel we could be on the […]
Top 8 Tips for New Teachers That You Probably Haven’t Considered
Here are some teacher guidance tips for new teachers. Being a first-year teacher is rewarding, challenging, and filled with lessons that you plan for your students and that you learn from yourself. While your first year is likely to include late night planning, anxiety with each classroom observation, and tons of trial and error, there […]
The No-Nonsense Nurturer® Leader: Behaviors for Transformational School Leadership
A healthy culture is the essential foundation for any high-performing organization. While it is the collective responsibility of all adults in the school to develop, share, and protect it, the process of building this foundation is anchored heavily in the behaviors, habits, and mindsets of its leaders (Coyle, 2018). All leaders feed the culture of […]
4 Steps to Classroom Turnaround: How do you turn around a class that you’ve let get out of control?
Transform My Classroom: I recently walked into a classroom to hear a teacher tell a student across the room “Jason, you’re on step 6 on the consequence chart.” It was only 9:40 am! I wondered to myself what this student could have possibly done so wrong to be on step 6 of 7 so early […]
A Powerful Paradigm Shift for Educators
Given the amount of time teachers and students spend together over the course of a year, relationships between the educators and students will form. It is inevitable. How productive those relationships are for both teachers and students, is left to question. Understanding the tendencies of teachers who are not No-Nonsense Nurturers may support you to […]
Effectively Leading Change through Inspiration and Accountability
In my office, to the right of my desk, is a bookshelf. The first four shelves are filled with books about topics that you might expect: being an effective principal, promoting instructional improvement, and supporting students with special needs, to name a few. The bottom and deepest shelf is stacked – vertically and horizontally – […]
How No-Nonsense Nurturers Respond When Tragedy Strikes (Even Somewhere Else)
Even if your school doesn’t share a zip code with Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, your school community may be dealing with its own difficulties related to the tragedy there. Fear, empathic grief, a desire to do something, a self-assessment – these are just a few of the feelings that can surface, even when […]