Hello, I hope this finds you well. Sorry it’s been such a while since the last Coaching Letter—I’ve been busy. This CL is a continuation of the last one, because it too is about critical thinking; but it is also a standalone piece about critical thinking in the curriculum. 2. Critical Thinking in the Curriculum. I asked in Coaching Letter #159 about where the traits listed in the Portrait of a Graduate (which all the districts I work with either have or are developing) actually show up in the curriculum.
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Hello, I hope you’re well. We are between the two big spring break weeks in Connecticut—almost everyone is on break either last week or next—so if that includes you I hope you get some rest and some sunshine. Remember to register for our Coaching In-Depth on May 18 and the Coaching Institute in September; not just for coaches—I am on a permanent campaign to convince leaders that they would be better leaders if they had coaching skills (which is different
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Hello, I hope you’re well, and before I forget I need to advertise that there are a few slots left for our coaching workshops—Coaching In-Depth on May 18 and the Coaching Institute in September, both in Madison, CT, facilitated by me and my BFF Kerry Lord. Don’t wait, they will sell out. My colleague Rydell and I spent the last few days at the Carnegie Summit in San Diego. The summit is an annual event hosted by the Carnegie Foundation
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Hi, I hope this finds you well. With the end of the mask mandate in schools in Connecticut, it has been a crazy time, but that pales in comparison with all the other crazy stuff that’s been going on, like the invasion of the second largest country in Europe by its neighbor. I visited Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, and it is very strange and depressing to see the names of cities that I have
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Hello, I hope you’re doing well. We had a big storm here overnight, and it’s still very windy but not as bad, and raining. I’m usually pretty good about going to the gym when I don’t have an early work start, but not today; I don’t mind snow and cold but I draw the line at wind and rain. Instead I did Wordle and Bardle, and then I got hooked on a live feed of big passenger jets landing in
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Hi, how are you, thank you for reading the Coaching Letter, and thank you to those of you who responded to the last CL, on street data. This letter is about psychological safety, which is the condition of knowing that your thoughts and ideas are welcome, won't be judged or dismissed, and that you will be given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to have positive intent. I talk to a lot of educators who do not believe that
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Friends, I hope this finds you well – for many of you, today was a snow day, so I hope you were able to make good use of it. I am sorry that circumstances continue to be really challenging for educators of all stripes, and I am grateful to all the people who wrote in response to the last Coaching Letter, about learning from the science of happiness. I’m glad it was useful. At the same time, I made reference
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Happy New Year! I very much hope that you were able to take a break over the holidays, and that you and yours are happy and healthy. New Year was always a big deal when I was growing up – I wrote this description of Hogmanay and The New Year a few years ago, and updated it this morning, in case you’re interested—it’s all about my family tradition and nothing about coaching or leading. I told a bunch of people that this
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Hello, I hope you are well. I was in Columbus, Ohio, last week, for the annual conference of the University Council for Educational Administration, which is a consortium of college of educations’ departments of educational leadership. I went because Jennie and I were presenting on the conceptual framework underlying our book on strategy: equity, logic, capacity and coherence. But even if I hadn’t been presenting, I would have tried to go, because it’s a small conference and I get to
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Hello, I hope this finds you well. This is the weekend in the US when, for most states, the clocks go back an hour. It is, therefore, my favorite weekend of the year. Plus, I get to indulge my favorite delusion, that I will take advantage of the change in the time to start getting up earlier. It’s not going to happen, but it’s a nice idea. I have had a very busy, very stressful, but quite wonderful couple of
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