Monday Must-Reads - April 3, 2017 (Volume 1)

As a means to try to get myself writing in this space a bit more, I am going to start each week by sharing three posts that I came across during the previous week that struck a chord with me. While my intentions are mainly self-serving, I am also hoping that a few folks might catch a post that they missed. 

Let's see how many weeks I can keep this up. Ready...set...go


1. What We Ask of Our Students and What We Do - George Couros

In this thought-provoking posts, George Couros calls upon educators to reflect upon whether they are walking the walk or just talking the talk when it comes to setting the stage for innovation in their schools and classrooms:

"We can’t continue to ask for creativity, innovation, and collaborative cultures with deep, independent thinking, while not acknowledging that compliance driven environments prevent these from happening."

Be sure to check out the post for the great scale that is included to help educators answer the question of whether their students are compliant, engaged, or empowered.  


2. Leadership…The Biggest Issue in Education?' - Jimmy Casas

Iowa Principal Jimmy Casas calls upon educators to avoid the long list of hurdles available to them when it comes to education's shortcomings and to look to the one source where they can guarantee improvement...themselves. 

"You see, everyone here has the capacity to lead and everyone here is responsible for the culture and climate of your organization. No one person is responsible for determining your success or failure as a teacher but you and no one is responsible for your morale but you."

For some reason, I have Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror echoing in my head now. 


3. Feedback is a GIFT - Matthew Arend

With Summative Evaluation season on the horizon, this post from Texas Principal Matthew Arend was quite timely. There were a few things in Matt's post that I continue to reflect upon, but the most important one for me was the following obe about ensuring that we have someone who is providing feedback to us that will push us:

"...if you are giving feedback, you should have someone providing feedback to you also. Feedback is by no means a one way street. We all need someone to “push us to come up with better and brighter ideas.”