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Professional Development for Teachers Should Spark Passion I am a professional development NERD. I can’t express how much I love it.  I am so very happy to sit and read a book on education, especially those centered around literacy instruction.  You wanna send me to a conference?  I am in my glory!  I will sit in the front, write down everything I can possibly scribble while the presenter talks, then gush about it when I get home.  I may or may not line up for an author’s aut

DUN-DUNNN-dun-dun. DUN-DUNNN-dun-dun. DUN-DUNNN-dun-dun. DUN-DUNNN-dun-dun. NA-na-naaa.  NA-na-naaa. Na-na!  Could you sing it?  That was my meager attempt at Mission Impossible’s theme song.  Because that’s what this post is about.  Doing the impossible. Talk about a doozy.  Change leadership 101 is that you have to establish the need for change in order to generate buy-in for change initiatives. But as Christian school leaders, we may not have that luxury.  Many of us are b

Remember when we were kids?  We’d anxiously wait for the teacher or maybe a classmate to pass back our papers so we could see our score.  If we did well, we’d have that moment of excitement.  If we did poorly, we’d cringe and stuff the paper into our desk or backpack. And that was about it. The score didn’t really change our behavior or help us learn better.  It was basically a “gotcha” or a “yay you” that went into the grade book, never to be seen again until report card tim

I remember the depressing ritual of hauling home a giant bag full of papers that I needed to grade day after day for weeks.  Students would write multiple page documents that would take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get through.  So much so that sometimes I didn’t even have the willpower to open the bag. I’d set up treats for myself- grade five and you get THIS!- just to help me try to get through the massive stack. Work-life balance didn’t exist.  It was painful for all involved, and I a

Christian School Leadership: Perception and Reality Welcome, Christian Educator!  I’m so glad you’ve found my blog and hope it becomes an important tool for your Christian school leadership.  We all know of some Christian schools that are complete standouts, known for academic excellence and sought after by believers and unbelievers alike.  Unfortunately, this is not the reputation of all Christian schools. Like it or not, Christian educators sometimes have a reputation of be