Control. Power. Authority. Distance. Conflict. Opinion. Fear. Status. No matter the lens- whether through personal narrative or qualitative study- wounds endured by some children who attend our schools scar them in deep ways. Words are sometimes used in schools to inflict wounds on children, and even as those words get…

“Hey, Mrs. Moran. How are you today? You having a good day?” It never fails when I visit the store where Jimmy works that if sees me, even if the length of a grocery aisle, he’ll yell so loud that people are stopped in their tracks. Last night, I could…

“What do students need to learn to be successful?” Most of us have been in workshops over the years where some version of this question likely has been asked. We record responses and share them with others at the table. We post stickies on chart papers and group them together…

Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live. …. (Angus Tuck) I reread Tuck Everlasting every few years because of this quote. Tuck was published the year I started teaching and it’s become a children’s classic…

Everyone knows what that means for our kids — shopping for new shoes, maybe something new to wear, all the requisite supplies on the list from glue sticks to markers, even boxes of tissues to donate to the class supply closet. Across America, local community members are also filling up…

Of all the dispositions a leader can bring to their work, empathy bonds leaders to the people they serve, particularly those who are different from the leader herself. People live with different challenges, different circumstances of life, different needs, and different ways of feeling and showing pain. A leader with…

Songcatcher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZLw5b1Qws In the ways of the old mountain people of the Blue Ridge, songcatcher simply referred to those who collected songs. I watched the movie Songcatcher recently again and was struck by the fictional story of an effort to catch, before lost forever, the voices of the mountain people…

I’ve been thinking about questions. Have you ever been in a meeting and taken the opportunity to observe what happens when those on the receiving end don’t ask questions or aren’t given a chance to ask questions? We sit silently. We wonder without resolution. We feel disempowered. We fume to…

This was a better Christmas than a year ago when Jon was in the early stages of being flat on his back 24/7 for a full year. His travel beginning last October outside the home was limited to being flat as possible in the car seat to go to and…