I’ve just launched a new audio interview series with the good people at the BAM! Radio network, and the link for my first episode is now live.
Listen in as I discuss the core components of a healthy school culture with two of the country’s best educators: Mission Hill principal Ayla Gavins and Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr. And please share your thoughts and reactions.
I know we’re already one month into 2013, but think back to last year for a second:
What were the most talked about education stories of 2012?
I’m guessing your list looks something like this – Common Core. The Chicago Teacher Strike. Newtown. And what worries me is that no matter what other stories you recalled – from Michelle Rhee to the Dropout Crisis to Race to the Top – they’re all likely to fit into one of the following categories: content, conflict, or catastrophe.
There’s a lot of talk nationally about the importance of teachers, and the need to identify what great teaching actually looks like — and requires.
Our search should start and end with people like Kathy Clunis D’Andrea.
A veteran educator at the Mission Hill School in Boston, Kathy epitomizes everything that’s good about the profession — and everything the rest of us need to pay closer attention to if we want to support a better, more holistic vision of American public education.
It starts with her three-part recipe for success: Love, Limits & Laughter. It succeeds because of her recognition that what matters most is equipping young people with an essential set of skills and habits that will guide them through life. And it endures because of her school’s commitment to create an environment that is consistent across classrooms, and grounded in shared values of trust, equity, and empathy.
See for yourself. And spread the word.
(This post also appeared on Start Empathy.)
Bully, the new film that opens today in theaters across the country, begins with the image of a heavy-diapered toddler named Tyler, happily staggering across the wet grass in front of his family’s Oklahoma home.
Moments later, we learn of Tyler’s painful path in the adolescent years that followed – years that were marked by relentless bullying and abuse at school, and years that culminated with his decision to hang himself, in a closet in his family’s home, at the age of 17.
Bully is a must-see film because it makes visible one of the most painful, universally kept secrets of our society and our schools: Every one of us has been bullied, and every one of us has bullied someone else.
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