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Tag Archives: communication in schools
Schools: A Changed Perspective
Summary: On the cusp of the end of a career in schools and the onset of a blog infested retirement, some meditations on the changed perspective the shift in life imposes. And a plea for stories, please. This summer I … Continue reading
Schools and Culture: The Wearing Down of Teacher
Summary: 46% of American teachers quit the profession within their first five years; what role does contemporary culture and the characteristics of the kids it turns out play in this appalling statistic? Recently I read with astonishment a reference in … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Reflections on Survival and Other Personal Idiosyncrasies: Part C
Summary: Being the last installment of a series of reflections on long term survival in the belly of the educational beast.….. Despite the relentless bureaucratic monolith, pockets of encouragement and support for individual vision occur, which have helped my longevity. … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Reflections on Survival and Other Personal Indiosyncrasies — Part B
Summary: Continuing reflections on survival during a career in schools. Another benefit of working in schools snuck up on me, and was particularly accentuated by a growing love of mountaineering and the birth of my children. School vacations are rather … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Notes on Staying “Alive”
A younger colleague, in the midst of a discussion about some relatively minor indignity we counselors have suffered or observed, turned to me recently and asked as though to a veteran of many wars, “how do you do it?” She … Continue reading
School Politics: Is Teacher Evaluation Destined for the Rabbit Hole? (Part A)
Summary: Teacher evaluation reforms encounter headwinds to be expected amid some sentiment that we don’t know enough about what we are trying to do, and alongside worries about the cost in time to those principals doing the evaluating. Meanwhile, the … Continue reading
School Culture and Politics: Whither the Money?
Summary: A conundrum, in which school reform will depend on application of public funds toward targeted solutions that remain elusive in a political environment highly resistive to new spending. I am a professional person. I strive to define my job … Continue reading
Schools and Politics: Bargained Success in the New Haven Schools
Summary: A reflection on Nicholas Kristof’s recent column “Uniting to Oust Failing Teachers”. He leaves out a critical element. In his column, “Uniting to Oust Failing Teachers”, as published in the Seattle Times February 18, 2012, the peripatetic Nicholas Kristof … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy and Some Politics: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part D
Summary: Referring back to last week’s post, a plan to provide study time in our school served as a promising example of the incremental changes needed to further reform in schools. The story is here continued. On what seemed to … Continue reading
Schools and Bureaucracy: Empower Your People; Chrysler Does — Part C
Summary: A program to provide extra help to struggling students in one school shows the potential inherent in staff/administration cooperative planning. Among the casualties of recession driven budget cuts in our school was the after school activity bus, admittedly a … Continue reading
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