Today is the first day of a very ambitious adult learning experience in Milford. There are 70 people here at Foran High School today—two teachers from each school, and all the building and central office administrators. We are here in preparation for the really ambitious part, which happens next week. Two teachers are going [...]

This Coaching Letter is about Coaching! I think a lot about coaches and teacher leaders, and how to leverage them better. These educators tend to be really strong teachers who also have other great qualities—they are hard-working, reliable, committed to student success, committed to their own improvement, credible to their colleagues, and have good [...]

Not too late to sign up for our Reading for Leading Soiree next week. Here’s the link. I chose Amy Edmondson’s book, The Fearless Organization, because of several experiences I had last year working with principals and other relatively junior educational leaders who believed that they had been given the message by senior leaders [...]

This Coaching Letter is about listening and empathy. I really appreciate Shane Parrish’s work, and I am grateful for the Brain Food newsletter, the Farnam Street blog (see this post on decision making, which is my favorite so far, although this one on mental models is also very interesting) and the Knowledge Project podcast. And see also CL #61. However, [...]

Good evening, I hope this finds you well. First, when we first announced that The Fearless Organization was our latest Reading for Leading book selection, we asked you to hold May 29 for a soirée. We shifted that date to June 4, because that evening the author, Amy Edmondson, can join us by video [...]

So much happens that I can’t write about it all. Sometimes I can’t even cover everything that happens in one day. Take the coaching workshop that Kerry and I hosted on Monday. We talked about coaching for equity, feedback, creating a shared understanding of high quality instruction, perceived self-efficacy… and those are only the [...]

Hi, I hope you are well. Tons of feedback on last week’s Coaching Letter, so here, unsurprisingly, is more about feedback. During one of my stints teaching in principal preparation programs (three different universities, so far), one of my colleagues asked to talk to me after one of our classes. “So,” she said, “How [...]

Last week was intense—partly because it was packed, and partly because several of the events packing it seemed very high stakes. So I’m going to talk about two of them and try to cleverly tie together big ideas about strategy, feedback, and failure as a rehearsal for success. I spent Thursday with the leadership [...]

Hi, I hope your week is off to a good start. I am writing this on Sunday afternoon at PAX East. Last year my kids wanted me to stick with them, but this year they don’t care, so I brought my computer and am enjoying watching the rain move over the Boston skyline and [...]

Good afternoon, I hope you are well. I'm hoping to get this to you before you fade into the weekend… This issue of the Coaching Letter is really just an attempt to keep up with all the many interesting things have been happening in the world of education. The "buy your way into college" [...]