LEADING THROUGH LISTENING

Following the tragic event at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, people throughout the country have been debating, discussing, collaborating, and coming together to find ways to improve school security. You can imagine that as a superintendent, every conversation I've had for the past week has touched on this topic. The issue surrounding these conversations is that once again, education is the only profession in the country where 99.9% of adults have experienced it, so everyone thinks they know everything about being a teacher or working in a school. Most people want to know what we are going to do to "prevent" something tragic like that from happening. My response is simple, if we want to "prevent" school shootings from happening, then our schools need to become maximum security prisons. We would need metal detectors at every entrance, barbed wire fences around the perimeter, no visitors or guests, no community events after hours, vis...

I've mentioned many times before how impressive the Rome community can be as it relates to the amount of philanthropy, support, and care for people. Having been part of many different organizations and school districts throughout my career, it is always a pleasure to be involved with a group who can come together in the face of anything at the drop of a hat. Part of being a leader, and a leader of a large organization, is you rarely hear positive thoughts from anywhere; but field a ton of complaints and are always privy to negative news that affects the organization. Along with that comes the responsibility of delivering negative news quite frequently and this weekend was no exception. However, I have yet to have the experience of delivering negative news without the receiving party asking what they can do to help. It doesn't matter the context of the news or the location of the news, people all throughout our organization and community come together frequently to support ea...

Paulo Friere is one of the world's foremost social rights activist who made a career in South America attempting to liberate individuals who were perceived to be underprivileged and oppressed. His work is strongly and closely intertwined with the world of education because Friere firmly believed that fair and equitable education was the key to ending oppression throughout the world. The majority of his philosophy is steeped not in traditional civil rights mentality that many of us in America are used to, but more in the difference between those who have power and those that do not. His philosophy is about all of us having equal power through education, not through laws and regulation. In Friere's world, ignorance was the barrier that continued the cycle of oppression. Lack of knowledge and ignorance prevented his society and community from maximizing their potential. Traditional societies don't seek out knowledge nor care to learn however, they live on ignorance which be...