Monday, July 27, 2015

Recruiting Season


A few months ago, during one of my FMLA principalships, I attended a district principal's meeting where one of the principals stood up, almost in tears, and began to speak about how hard it was to be the principal of a Title campus, that it was harder than other schools (she'd know, her experience runs the full range of socioeconomic backgrounds) and it was very difficult to get teachers to stay and buy into the work that was happening. My apologies, I really can't remember the exact context of the comment, but I recall it very clearly because it was an emotionally charged portion of the meeting.  She was highly frustrated.

While every campus has its struggles and challenges, having taught at Title campuses, I'd tend to agree with her, but my brain immediately shot to what is the identity and brand of this campus?  Why do teachers want to belong, what makes this school an amazing place to be?  I also began to think about how we often speak of student engagement.  Is the difficulty or type of work any different than blaming video

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Joy & Growth Mindset

What happens when the happiness doesn't come?

There was the key question from a message at church a few weeks ago.  Replace happiness with any type of word you like: success, promotion, healing, etc.  I've shared this with teachers and friends following tough conversations or in tough situations:  
How we respond to a situation truly defines us, not the situation itself.  Tweet this!  
I've had to remind myself of this quite a few times.  I'd venture to say that it is not a natural response to choose joy or to choose growth in failure or shortcoming.  At least for