LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

As our iconic friend Scooby-Doo and his buddy Shaggy would often say, "Zoinks!! Zombies Scoobs!!" I feel like sometimes that's what we all think when we ourselves do not get enough sleep and/or our students come to school without getting enough sleep. As adults, we are able to know what our deficiencies are and what the negative outcomes may be of not getting enough sleep. Sure we can still function and most times our demeanor isn't affected, but a lack of sleep can still have a negative effect on our performance. More importantly, students who are not able to get the necessary amounts of rest each day generally present challenges in school. For some students, this can lead to discipline problems, while others it leads to academic deficiencies. Regardless, having enough rest is crucial for the success of everyone. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that school age children (ages 6-13) get anywhere between 9 and 11 hours of rest each night. Teenagers (ages 14-...

One of the most talked about educational practice over the past 100 years has to be homework. Why is there so much assigned? Why do we have to do it? What is the purpose? How is it figured into my grade? And then there are the educational cliches associated with it. It builds responsibility. It develops a student's skills. It's good practice. Regardless of any of this, the fact remains that there is still no clear reason why we should or shouldn't utilize homework. More than a century after the advent of American schooling as we understand it and we still don't have a great utilization/explanation for homework beyond compliance. If homework is meant for practice, then why is it done outside of the supervision of the teacher? Any sport or competitive activity I have ever participated in had the coach at every practice to correct and improve errors/mistakes the moment they happened. If it's meant to build skills, what do you do if the student can demonstrate the sk...

Walking around the District on a weekly basis, it is astonishing how many people in our community that will openly tell you that they were told not to tell their leaders about any issues that they have or may know about it. Ironically, most of those same people will tell someone else who is either not in the organization or in a different function of the organization about their issue. Apparently, the concept of the chain seems have been melted away. The chain I speak about is the chain of command. When in history did bringing a concern to people that may not have any impact on the issue or may not know anything about what is going on decide to become obsolete? I spend more time on the phone trying to diagnose what may be happening in many situations because people would rather go right to the top instead of speak with individuals in the correct places that can actually solve the problem twice as fast. Or better yet, often times when something small arises and people decide to brin...

I have often said that the kiss of death (KOD) for any organization is when you respond to questions with, "because that's how we've always done it", or "in the past...", or essentially, the status quo . Our world is an ever changing environment and society isn't going to wait for anyone. People within public schools everywhere can claim and attempt to say things were better once upon a time, and that may be true. But, what's also true is that society outside of our schools is not the same as it was "once upon a time" and if we aren't adapting and teaching our children to live within the society that they will face when they leave school, then we aren't preparing them for the 21st century... we continue to prepare them for the early 20th century. While reflecting on or progress, speed bumps, and literal road blocks recently, I have come to believe that the status quo sometimes might not be that bad because the real KOD is status ...

Monday, October 2, 2017 is the Rome City School District and Rome Teacher Center's annual Awareness Day. We invite you to join us as we celebrate our community and work to raise awareness and understanding around the topic of bullying.  The district wide activity this year is to have every school paint Kindness Rocks. Each school was asked to collect and paint a minimum of 10 rocks.  More is better! Each rock should have an uplifting, positive picture or message painted on the rock. Rocks will be collected from each school in the days after the event. Once collected, to make sure they are seen by the community, they will be used along a path in a designated area in Rome.  We are hoping that maybe the rocks can be displayed at multiple sites in the city during the 2017-2018 school year. If you would like more information about Kindness Rocks, please go to:  http://thekindnessrocksproject.com/ .  We are also asking all students and staff within the Distric...