Building and Sustaining Community: What Matters Most in these Strange Times
In the opening episode of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, a young boy goes missing, which catalyzes the community into uncovering the sordid secrets of their small town in an effort to find him. The young boy’s three friends, along with a special guest who comes into their lives, form an even deeper bond…
Read MoreIt’s Always October
Several years ago, when the San Francisco Giants were on their even-year World Series run (2010, 2012, 2014), there was a buzz in San Francisco that heightened our energy levels. It was a fun time to live and work here. And the notion of a heightened energy level seems appropriate for the month of October:…
Read MoreThe One Word We Need for a Great School Year
I love to drop in on classes for five to fifteen minutes. Most often I leave having observed something about how a student learns or the way a teacher teaches. Occasionally, however, I learn something that makes me have the proverbial, “aha!” moment. That just happened. After leaving a fifth grade humanities class, I immediately…
Read MoreBack to School: Creating Safe, Equitable Spaces for All
Anyone who has been following the news this past summer has noticed much tumult in the world and in our nation. The marches and counter-protests in Charlottesville and Boston ring alarm bells for anyone who believes in a socially just world. It’s a chilling time to be a member of this nation, and as educators,…
Read More4 Must-Read Books for the Beginning of the School Year
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain This book by Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction and is appropriate for all teachers at any experience level who strive to make their classrooms a safe and rigorous place for all their students. In…
Read MoreLean Into Discomfort: Developing Better Skills to Really Talk about Race in Schools
As we post this, events are unfolding in Charlottesville and across the nation that bring a new urgency to our need to increase our racial literacy. Yet, even as some of our school leaders denounce the white supremacy on display, there remain critical gaps and omissions in our words, our actions, and our understandings. Schools…
Read More“Make Box Brownies”: A Summer Pilgrimage
For educators, summer means many things: catching up on all the TV and books one missed during the school year; taking vacations; sleeping in; engaging in enriching and rejuvenating professional development. In addition to preparing for CATDC’s Teaching Foundations program, I’m participating in an activity my coach and I call a “summer pilgrimage.” Sometimes good…
Read MoreSummer School: Gearing Up for Teaching Foundations 2017
We’re well into the 21st Century, and the buzzwords of a new era are part of our daily lexicon now: project-based learning, design thinking, differentiation, personalization. And as the culture of learning has changed in this century, so has the definition of teacher. Whereas once upon a very long time ago, it was okay (I’m…
Read MoreThe Learning Continues
At the end of my final faculty meeting as Dean of Faculty Development at The Athenian School, I invited everyone to turn and talk to their neighbors about their plans for summer learning: not the assigned educational articles that I had sent out that morning along with the agenda, but their own chosen reading and…
Read MoreIt’s Okay to Let Go
Gaps, detours and time away from our career path is not necessarily encouraged or acknowledged as a valuable use of time in our independent schools, especially if we aspire to be leaders, and so, against our better judgement we allow our fears and the chatter of others to persuade us to stay even when in…
Read MoreLeading with Love: Lessons Learned from My First Year in Administration
First years at anything are hard. Kindergartners learn how to do school for the first time; middle and high schoolers learn how to navigate change not only in academics and moving from self-contained classrooms to several new courses/teachers, but also in social groups and the physical signs of adolescence; college freshmen are learning to live…
Read MoreCreating a Growth Mindset In and Out of the Classroom
We want our students to achieve growth, both in and out of the classroom. And we know that simple shifts and practice can have a profound impact on both their work and behavior. Building on Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset and Carol Thomlinson’s Differentiated Instruction, we can design a roadmap for students to meet…
Read MoreHow to Add Movement to Your Lessons
“If you feel thirsty, your students are probably dehydrated.” I learned this statement in college while training to become a backpacking leader for freshman orientation trips. We, as senior trip leaders, were tasked with keeping tabs on the needs of our groups by measuring our own energy levels and then imagining a (potentially) amplified version…
Read MoreBuilding an Emotionally Intelligent Team — an excerpt from The Art of Coaching Teams
Excerpted from The Art of Coaching Teams by Elena Aguilar. Copyright © 2016 by Elena Aguilar. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Building an emotionally intelligent team takes skill and knowledge on the facilitator’s part and lots of time. An advantage in launching a team is that you can do a lot…
Read MoreHow to Start Your Own Women’s Leadership Circle
Professional Development is akin to a triple lattè for passionate educators. Taking a day to attend a workshop to learn a new skill, get inspired and connect with other passionate educators is energizing and satisfying. I typically leave the day feeling a little lighter, reinvigorated to do my job, inspired by reflecting on best practices…
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