Inspiration
15 Books (and Anti-Racist Resources) to Add to Your Summer Reading List
Read books written by and listen to podcasts hosted by people whose identities are underrepresented and historically marginalized or different than your own–check your biases, prejudices, stereotypes, and assumptions.
Read MoreChanging Lives Through Collaboration
Creative collaboration with teachers in the service of student learning has been a deep current running through my career. As Executive Director of the CATDC, learning with and from other educators has become not only a passion, but one of my primary job responsibilities.
Read MoreRethinking Teacher Evaluation in Independent Schools
Working in schools is a vulnerable act. Every day can feel like a high-stakes performance review in front of an audience of young evaluators: performing effective planning, organization, pedagogy, relationship management, flexibility, patience, community building, knowledge of human psychology and all the additional skills of being an educator. It’s no wonder then that when teachers hear they’re about to be evaluated, anxiety sets in and amygdala hijack takes hold.
Read MoreLeading With the Brain in Mind
Understanding our neurobiological hardwiring plays an essential role in creating environments where teachers and schools can thrive. School leaders have the opportunity to notice the state of escalation occurring in stressful situations and model vulnerability to create space for others to do the same.
Read MoreWhy We Need Racial Literacy Now More Than Ever
Given the current national landscape, it has become painfully obvious that those of us in schools need to double our efforts to teach racial literacy (Stevenson, 2014). Recently, I was working with 4/5th graders who are part of a racial affinity group program we coordinate in Portland, OR (for more about these groups, see So…
Read MoreThe Benefits of Immersive Learning
Realizing Our Vision This past January, The Bay School of San Francisco launched its inaugural Immersives program: three-week academic courses that are experiential and project-based. After two years of developing curricula, honing pedagogy, securing partnerships with organizations throughout California, and working out the logistics of each course, Bay expanded its campus beyond its walls and…
Read MoreJoin the Club
Clubs and affinity spaces are designed to appeal to people of common interests and experiences. This shared experience ignites a sense of understanding and support within the group, a familiar camaraderie. The sense of empowerment that exists in affinity spaces is more critical when this group of people is part of a less dominant, disadvantaged,…
Read MorePlaying on the Same Team: Building a Bigger Community Across Schools
I recently visited a peer school in the Bay Area, a place where a few of CATDC’s Teaching Foundations “alumni” worked and a place where one of my colleagues was teaching a class for the first time. I thought it would be fun to do a site visit and see teachers in their element. I…
Read MoreEducating As If We Are Already There
“I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life’s blueprint?” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked this of Philadelphia’s Barratt Junior High students in 1967. When I read his speech at the King Center in Atlanta it made me think of my role as an educator because Dr. King’s question…
Read MoreA Letter to Teachers
I spent a good part of the summer (and the months leading up to it) planning and co-facilitating Teaching Foundations in Southern California and the Bay Area with a team of stellar facilitators and cohorts of inspiring participants. While I end each session feeling physically tired, my heart always is full, and from that fullness,…
Read MoreA Rising Tide Will Lift All Boats
My parents immigrated to the United States from Central America, and I began my school career as an English Language Learner. Having graduated from Saint Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco, the University of California at Berkeley, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Saint Mary’s Kalmanovitz School of Education, I understand what it means to…
Read MoreCultivating the Leadership Seed: My Journey with the CATDC
Debbie Reed began the first meeting of the Leadership Fellows Program with a story of her journey, when she was a girl, cutting out pictures of mythological creatures from magazines, knowing that someday she would use those clippings when she became the teacher she aspired to be. That journey would take Debbie through numerous schools,…
Read MoreTaking Off This Summer
As our school years finally end, and as we wrap up our culminating meetings in preparation for a quieter summer, I’m reminded of this powerful internal tool that allows us to recharge these next couple of months: the off-switch. For teachers, the off-switch may be an easier sell. Time away from school will allow teachers…
Read MoreSummer Reading List: Emotional Resilience, Deep Learning, and Culturally Responsive Teaching
LEADERSHIP The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups Effective schools have collaborative environments where teachers and staff are free to be innovative. As a leader, you are crucial in creating a culture that is safe, honors vulnerability, and has a clear mission and purpose. This book by Daniel Coyle offers a roadmap for…
Read MoreWhy Restorative Justice Practices and Community Matter More than Ever in the Era of School Shootings
This morning, like every morning when I park in a lot of the middle school where I am an assistant principal, questions flood my head in anticipation of the coming day. Which students will need academic support and interventions today? How can I best coach that teacher with her long-term lesson planning to increase her…
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