Educator, dad, board game geek, book reader, magic: the gathering nerd, running enthusiast, and coffee lover
“What grade did you get?” I hear this too often in schools. And it pains me. The grade delusion Etched into several of my childhood core memories is the experience of being given back assignments by my teacher. There was a familiar pattern that I recognise now. The teacher, slowly walking around the classroom, hands […]
Our leadership team has had the same conversation with staff for the last 3 weekends: Friday afternoon: “Ok, we are all set for Monday. Thanks for the hours of planning this week to get this right…” Saturday morning: “Ah, sorry to interrupt your weekend. New changes just announced. New plan needed for Monday…” It feels […]
When I was growing up I wanted to work on a starship. Science Officer or Captain – I wasn’t too fussed. I just loved the idea of flying out into the unknown, meeting new people, and exploring strange new worlds. Throughout my life, I have embraced leadership challenges and intentionally taken myself out of my […]
Derek Sivers says that we should let pedestrians define the walkways. Here’s his anecdote: A new college campus was built, but one thing was still debated: where in the grass should we put the paved walkways? Some people thought the walkways should go around the grass, to leave it green. Some thought the walkways should […]
This week, a student asked me if she could take some action to show support for a climate cause that is important to her. It involved wearing different clothes for the day and so she was asking for my permission to promote it school-wide at very short notice. If I said yes I might be […]
For home-learning last week, my little daughter was asked to research historical events about the 1st March. It was an interesting activity that stimulated a lot of conversation at home (did you know that Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity on 1st March 1869?) and I was so pleased to see the value and enjoyment that she […]
Maybe I am just overthinking things at the moment. Today, I saw a boy sitting alone with his hands holding his head. He’s fed up. Stressed. Lonely. Of course, I don’t know, but that’s what is going through my mind. So many people are suffering from the cumulative impact of COVID, and I just assume […]
Perseverance, NASA’s Mars Rover, successfully landed on the Red Planet this week to search for signs of ancient microbial life, and to advance the quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. Wow. I know this because my children asked to stay up well past their bedtime to watch the landing happening live on YouTube. […]
Good comedy makes me happy. In one of my favourite comedy sketches, Eddie Izzard takes on the role of the Grim Reaper, offering a series of unwitting participants the choice of “cake or death”. It’s not too difficult to make a decision here…just as long as there is enough cake to go around! I Zoomed-in […]
In The Wizard of Oz, the heroine, Dorothy, finds herself on a quest with three companions: a scarecrow in need of a brain, a tin man with no heart, and a lion without courage. In our uncertain times, as schools seek to navigate the complexity of the immediate future and think about how they need […]
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