One of the most interesting and polarizing concepts in education that has popped up in recent years is the notion of “toxic positivity”. Healthline.com reports that with toxic positivity, negative emotions are seen as inherently bad. Instead, positivity and happiness are compulsively pushed, and authentic human emotional experiences are denied, minimized, or invalidated. Toxic positivityContinue reading “Toxic Positivity is Hurting Education”
Category Archives: Organizational Leadership
5 Ways to Work With a Reluctant Teacher Collaborator
The research is very clear on teacher collaboration: it works. A recent study by Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. (2015), surveyed over 9000 teachers on the subject of teacher collaboration. Over 90% of the teachers surveyed indicated that collaboration was beneficial to both teachers and their students. However, there are teachersContinue reading “5 Ways to Work With a Reluctant Teacher Collaborator”
5 Things New Principals (and principals that are new to their school) Should Never Do Their First Year On The Job
Becoming a principal for the first time, or moving to a new school, is an exciting venture for any educator. Principals must do everything in their power to set themselves up for success. According to the 2012-13 principal staffing survey from the US Department of Education, over 20 percent of principals left their schools and over 70Continue reading “5 Things New Principals (and principals that are new to their school) Should Never Do Their First Year On The Job”
The 5 Elephants of Education
Education has many 800 pound gorillas, elephants in the room, and barrels full of monkeys. One can say that it is a regular zoo. 1. Teacher Pay I believe that the biggest elephant in the room is the lack of adequate pay for our nation’s teachers.
5 Ways to Reimagine Your School’s Vision Statement
A school’s vision statement is often overlooked, hidden, or inexplicably non-existent. It can be found on most school’s websites, hidden among bells schedules, lunch options, teacher websites, and PTA pages. Teachers, administrators often don’t know what is written in their school’s vision statement. Parents don’t either. Students … well, you get the picture. However, shouldn’tContinue reading “5 Ways to Reimagine Your School’s Vision Statement”
5 Ways to Foster Teacher Leadership
The bedrock of a great school is shared leadership. All stakeholders must have a seat at the decision-making table. This ensures that the vision and direction of the school is decided upon collectively and in the best interest of all parties. Teachers are key players in the process and need to be encouraged to stepContinue reading “5 Ways to Foster Teacher Leadership”
5 Ways Principals Can Build Trust
One of the most important books that I have read in my career is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. In his book, Lencioni outlines the elements needed to build strong, cohesive teams. Here is a link to the book: Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Trust is the foundation in which productive teams areContinue reading “5 Ways Principals Can Build Trust”
5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2018
It has been a year since I published the article, “5 Educational Concepts We Need to Eliminate in 2017”. It has been read and shared over 40,000 times since its publication. The feedback received from this article has given me much to write about over the past year, with many other articles from The Principal’sContinue reading “5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2018”
5 Jobs That Teachers Do Other Than Teach
The role of the teacher has changed greatly over the past few decades. Teachers have to take on more and more responsibilities with fewer and fewer resources. Gone are the days where teachers only had to focus on content delivery. In today’s educational landscape, teachers take on a wide variety of roles and wear manyContinue reading “5 Jobs That Teachers Do Other Than Teach”
5 Ways Education is Like Game of Thrones
Winter is coming! With the return of Game of Thrones to the airwaves, I was inspired to write an article based on this tremendous series. As I prepared for the new season, I thought about the history of the series and began to draw some parallels to the world of education, specifically working in theContinue reading “5 Ways Education is Like Game of Thrones”
The Principal's Desk 