This morning during a crisp winter walk, I reflected on the importance of leadership, especially during this most troubling time. Leadership has been front and center throughout this pandemic and the influence of leaders has been essential in the education world. System and school leadership has been remarkable over this time and has demonstrated the …
2020 archive
Dec 18
Unsung heroes through the pandemic
It should be very evident that our front line workers are some of the biggest heroes during this pandemic. They’ve been incredibly strong in supporting and ultimately keeping our health care system going as well as it is during this time. It is hard to imagine the additional stress they have felt and the mounting …
Dec 12
The window is open!
Last week I wrote a blog post entitled, “There are no curriculum police!” which addressed the very real need of shrinking the number of outcomes taught to ensure essential learning for all students. With the general loss of teaching time from the pandemic, it is imperative that teachers, using their professional judgment both individually and …
Dec 06
There are no curriculum police!
Back in 2014, I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the Curriculum Prototyping Symposium in Calgary and followed it up with a blog post entitled, “Why curriculum needs to change.” The panel brought together a wide array of stakeholders debating the “big why” of curriculum redesign. The process of prototyping in itself was revolutionary …
Nov 08
Searching for wellness
If I was able to wave a magic wand to establish a priority in all organizations, it would be for wellness! Most might assume that it is due to this ongoing pandemic and while the need for wellness may be more pressing today, it was a growing need long before COVID-19 hit. The importance of …
Oct 27
The Diploma Exam Debate
Recently, the Minister of Education in Alberta announced that Diploma Exams for students written in November would be optional due to COVID-19. In the Red Deer Advocate on October 20th, editor Dave Marsden wrote, “Rather than having less testing, if anything, the school system needs more.” His premise, because there may be gaps in the …
Oct 02
Canadian politicians…time to wake up!
The other night, I watched the US Presidential debate and like most sane people, I was pretty dismayed by the entire debacle. It was certainly a low point if not the lowest for American politics. There wasn’t a simple stretch of the truth, instead, lies spewed and the decorum exhibited was deplorable! What we watched …
Sep 26
Messaging counts!
I had really hoped that through this pandemic the overall respect for what educators and systems do would improve. During out of class learning, there were more than enough parents who said something like, “I can’t keep up with my own 2 children, how do teachers do it with a class of 30?” I’m not …
Sep 16
September constants…always relationships!
The start of school, typically in September has a couple of constants. First, everybody gets sick! We have a heightened awareness because of COVID 19, but let’s face it, students and staff often get sick during this first month of school. Students and staff have typically lost some of their immunity factors over the summer …
Aug 17
Don’t forget about your people!
Some leaders are people first while others tend to be more policy driven. The very best can walk in both worlds quite easily but if a leader needs to choose, I would always suggest working on relationships. Many organizations and especially small school divisions were run like small “mom & pop” corner stores. There wasn’t …