It is June 3, 2020. Days into protests across the nation and world, human beings are angry, confused, frustrated, and in pain.[i] Today I sat down to pen a statement on behalf of CT Center for School Change, but I struggled. During the last several days, I’ve used writing as a source of sense-making, [...]
Despite the fact that I have a book manuscript due on June 1, and a module for the Center’s re-opening school workshop to design, and other district projects I’m working on, I have found myself having to fight the urge to work on an article for the Kappan’s April 2021 issue: “Research, meet practice.” [...]
Friends, I hope this finds you well. I can’t believe it’s so long since I wrote a Coaching Letter, and I can’t believe that when schools closed several weeks ago I thought I was going to have more time to read books. I bought a pile of them from bookshop.org. A book purchase is [...]
Over the last several weeks, I’ve partnered with numerous districts, schools and leadership networks. I’ve watched and listened carefully as they make sense of the pandemic and its impact on schooling. And as the father of two teenagers, I’ve watched my own district plan and re-plan how they will best meet student needs in [...]
Friends, I hope this finds you well. I know there are people reading this who have been ill with covid-19, and others who know someone who has died. I am very sorry. I know also that people in education have plenty offers of help and resources coming at them, so I don’t want to [...]
Hi, I hope you're well. My dad reminded me that today is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident that nearly resulted in the loss of the spacecraft on its way to the moon. The book Lost Moon (Lovell and Kluger, 1994) and the movie based on the book, Apollo 13, are favorites of mine. I think we can learn [...]
Friends, now that we are a couple of weeks into what I think of as the Great Experiment in Distance Learning, all these thoughts keep crossing my mind about various theories and research that I use all the time for myriad purposes have taken on a whole new significance. This Coaching Letter is about [...]
School leadership matters, and though it can come from different sources and be distributed across the organization, we know that school administrators are essential for creating a school vision, supporting high-quality teaching and learning, developing educator capacity, fostering a strong culture, and driving improvement. Over the past few decades, thousands of articles and books [...]
Hello, I hope you are well. We at the Center are working hard to be helpful in these difficult times. You should have received a set of resources from us on Thursday, plus a survey so that we have a better idea of what you need. Everyone on staff would be more than happy [...]
This Coaching Letter is about many things, including but not limited to: leadership, decision-making, tacit knowledge, expertise, experience, and trust. I once heard Meg Wheatley give a keynote speech at a conference in Colorado. I don’t know exactly when it was, but it was probably around 15 years ago, after the birth of Google [...]