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Jun 4, 20182 min read
Kids These Days
I truly believe that part of being an advocate for kids is believing that all of them, no matter what, possess redeeming qualities. I...


May 13, 20183 min read
Who Do You Want to Mirror?
I am absolutely hooked on the book The Body Keeps Score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD. It is...


Apr 23, 20184 min read
Self-awareness & Advocacy for Educator Mental Health
Because of my upcoming book The Fire Within: Lessons from defeat that have ignited a passion for learning, I am asked a lot about...


Apr 15, 20185 min read
Leadership & The Depth of Relationships
The other day I was working with the administrative team at a school district near Chicago. We were dissecting the Hierarchy of Needs for...

Mar 16, 20185 min read
My Core Beliefs: I’m Only as Good as the People I Surround Myself With
This is a post in the Core Beliefs Series. To read the introductory post, click here. In other words, relationships are the most...


Mar 7, 20185 min read
My Core Beliefs: Focus on the Why
This is the second post in the series. You can find the first post on defining your core beliefs here. There has been a lot of discussion...


Feb 17, 20188 min read
The Depressed Educator: If only “getting help” really worked like that
I have been spending a great deal of my time talking about the mental health of educators and students. Maybe it’s because so much of my...


Feb 8, 20183 min read
The One Where We Try to Teach Empathy
I was Voxing with my good friend Zac Leonard and we were discussing one of their more recent topics on #EdTechAfterDark: teaching...


Jan 28, 20184 min read
If I Knew Then: Advice to my first-year teacher self
In preparing for a keynote, I had come across this video where teachers were asked to write a letter to themselves as a first-year...

Jan 17, 20183 min read
Building Trust with Challenging Conversations
Educators are nice people. We are taught to be positive and complementary and to give feedback that people can feel good about. What we...


Jan 10, 20185 min read
The Rules of Teacher Engagement
So many times we talk about teacher engagement in the form of how engrossed they are in their professional learning. However, as I’ve...


Dec 16, 20175 min read
Destigmatizing the Depressed Educator
I have used my blog as a professional outlet, as a way to work through issues and thoughts in a way that has allowed me to grow and...

Dec 9, 20174 min read
Hierarchy of Needs for Innovation & Divergent Thinking: Mindset
This is the fourth post in the #hierarchyseries. The first post can be found here. Updated 10/9/2019 As I’ve mentioned in previous posts,...

Dec 4, 20174 min read
Hierarchy of Needs for Innovation & Divergent Thinking Series: Effective Leadership
This post is the third in the #HierarchySeries. You can find the first post here. Updated 10/9/2019 The area of effective leadership...

Nov 29, 20175 min read
Hierarchy of Needs for Innovation & Divergent Thinking: Climate & Culture
The idea of the Hierarchy of Needs for Innovation & Divergent Thinking came to me at a time when I was looking for a more concrete way to...


Nov 13, 20174 min read
I Was an Imperfect Teacher
I’ve read articles that describe social media as one of the reasons that teenagers have self-esteem issues partially because of how...


Nov 4, 20174 min read
Make Every Moment Count
You’re at work. It’s been a tough day. You’ve had a hard lockdown drill, you were just told it’s time for another formal observation and...


Oct 19, 20172 min read
Don’t Mistake Control for Influence
I think sometimes there is a misperception that the amount of influence you have comes from how much control you can exert. You can...


Oct 3, 20175 min read
Five Things My Mentors Taught Me
While I truly value my professional learning network that I’ve worked so diligently to build, there a few people in my life that I have...


Sep 24, 20176 min read
The Creation of a Genius Bar: How our student led tech teams have formed
Although our district has been 1:1 for about eight years, this is the first year we have implemented a student led helpdesk. I’m not...
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