Episode 247 – What problem are you trying to solve?

EPISODE 247What problem are you trying to solve?Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:Often we are so busy pushing this initiative or that program that we lose sight of the problem we were trying to solve in the first place.Builders are stubborn on the vision and flexible on the details. When we get into disputes with […]

Episode 246 – The elephant in the room

EPISODE 246The elephant in the roomBiggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:Being a principal is hard — not so much because of the job duties, but because of the emotional weight every principal carries each day.One of the hardest parts about being a principal is that while everyone else has a clearly defined area of […]

Episode 245 – Yes, but

EPISODE 245Yes, but…Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:Holding people accountable is not the same as helping them be accountable. Holding people accountable relies on your chasing, checking, and correcting others. Helping people be accountable means empowering people to take responsibility on their own, even when you’re not checking. True staff alignment doesn’t mean conformity. True […]

Episode 244 – How to Build True Staff Alignment Part 2

EPISODE 244How to Build True Staff Alignment Part 2Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:If YOU are the reason your teachers do the right thing, then the only person truly accountable is YOU.Chasing, checking, and correcting teachers is not only exhausting, it’s totally unnecessary when you have true staff alignment.You cannot create a fully aligned […]

Episode 243 – How to Build True Staff Alignment Part 1

EPISODE 243How to Build True Staff Alignment Part 1Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:The way that we were trained to give feedback to teachers creates a power imbalance that robs teachers of true ownership over their practice and their results.If your support for teachers doesn’t set them up to be successful without you, it’s […]

Episode 242 – Are you the bottleneck in your school?

EPISODE 242Are you the bottleneck in your school?Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:If your school can’t continue to grow without you, then YOU are the bottleneck in your school.When we treat teachers like renters rather than owners, we can’t get mad when they don’t take responsibility for their growth or their outcomes. If the “support” […]

Episode 241 – 5 Lessons I’m taking into 2024

EPISODE 2415 Lessons I’m taking into 2024Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:Success is simply a matter of doing the right things long enough.Having a vision is easy. Sticking with your vision through the tough times and seeing it through to the end is what separates leaders from Builders.The key to finding the right data […]

Episode 240 – The 7 Principles of Effective Instruction Part 2

EPISODE 240The 7 Principles of Effective Instruction Part 2Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:It baffles me that in most cases we wait for students to fail before we offer them support. Why are we not setting students up so that they never fail in the first place?We’ve lost sight of the fact that grades […]

Episode 239 – The 7 Principles of Effective Instruction Part 1

EPISODE 239The 7 Principles of Effective Instruction Part 1Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:Checking lesson plans is a waste of time. It’s more important to see how a teacher plans to help students achieve the standards during a unit of instruction than to see what the teacher is doing on a daily basis.  Every […]

Episode 238 – Would you know great teaching if you saw it?

EPISODE 238Would you know great teaching if you saw it?Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:There are really only 7 principles to great teaching. Anything else is simply your preference.Great teaching is a little like porn. We think we’ll know it when we see it. But the truth is, most of us really don’t understand […]