This week I had the chance to talk with David Monaco (@dmonaco), Head at Parish Episcopal in Dallas. He used a phrase that I am going to totally steal and promote and want to give him credit first. He said "I want to get my faculty up into the jet stream" of what is going [...]
Dr. Adrian Bejanof Duke, author of Design in Nature, has been kind enough to help clarify our understanding of how the constructal law will drive the design of future K-12 learning systems. The constructal law requires that systems that carry some flow tend towards a tree-shape design (see earlier posts for clarification). I queried him [...]
I have been investigating, and you have been commenting on, the future structure of K-12 education. In my morning paper there is an article about National School Choice Week, particularly important here in San Diego, which has one of the strongest school choice programs in the nation. Families can apply for their students to attend any [...]
I was honored to receive the following comment from Dr. Adrian Bejan at Duke about my post on his book yesterday. Since many of you may not follow the comments, I will re-post here. I am also asking Dr. Bejan to perhaps weigh in one more time with a clarification that can help us understand or [...]
I was asked last week to put together some ideas for working with a school’s leadership team based on the findings of my visits with more than 60 schools this fall. At a high level, the goal would be to help that team develop the skills to become institutionally comfortable with change. Those of you [...]
This short post from Seth Godin caught my eye. He names two people you might need to help you in your professional life: an agonist to cause things to happen, and a procrastinatrix whose job it is to hold you accountable for getting things done. I think many senior leaders have a procrastinatrix, or should; [...]
While private and charter schools may provide many of the flexible proving grounds for the brushfires of innovation, traditional public schools, which at least for now represent 90% of education in America, will be the field on which we succeed or fail. So it was great to meet up via phone yesterday with teacher Don [...]
How is this for a glass-half full view of life: one of the benefits of flying to Europe in crowded coach class at the holidays is that jet lag leaves you lying awake the next night, plenty of time and space for thinking. Here are three such thoughts that specific school leaders solicited from me [...]
The journey has been long, and I might have run out of steam before visiting the 64th and last school on this remarkable trip. But my hosts made sure that was not the case. A day at Greenhill School in Dallas was the perfect final chapter, a visit packed with that combination of exciting programs [...]
St. Agnes Academy and St. Dominic School is the oldest continuously operating school in Memphis, according to 19-year President Barbara Daush. They have 915 students; boys are preK-8 and girls preK-12. When I arrived at the stunning new Veritas Research Center building, a group of girls were headed off for a morning of service at [...]