Change Starts Here

Anne Chow describes herself as a mom, daughter, wife, second-generation American, servant leader and agent of change. She believes that everyone can be a change agent and often thinks back to Gandhi’s quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

With the future more uncertain than ever due to the pandemic, leadership must be dynamic and realize the power of human connection —the type of leadership that has gotten us to this point in time will not be sufficient.

Leadership is no longer defined by your position or title, but instead is a mindset and choice. Chow explained, “We need to seek leadership from all sources and all people.”

So, how does one display leadership characteristics? Chow believes in the seven Cs:

1. Communication: utilize all the tools at your disposable, be creative and find ways to build connections.

2. Character: your integrity, principles and values are your foundation.

3. Competence: what you need to do your job well today.

4. Curiosity: staying committed to learning.

5. Courage: grit, resilience and “when you get knocked down, you get back up again.”

6. Collaboration: working with others.

7. Caring: invest intentional time in your business and employees.

Chow closes with two of her favorite quotes (below) and a sincere, heartfelt thank you to the world’s educators molding the minds of tomorrow’s leaders, who are the students today.

“Education is the passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” –Malcom X, human rights activist

“The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.” —Juliette Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts of the USA

“I’m really interested in changing the conversation from mental illness to brain health,” said Amen. “We want to end mental illness, and the only way to do that is a revolution in brain health.”

Amen provided affirming advice, instructing listeners to ask themselves this question before everything they do: “Is this good or bad for my brain?” Amen went on to describe the importance of loving their brain and how most people ignore or neglect their brain. He used a child purposefully banging his head against a soccer ball as a clear-cut example of how little consideration people give to their minds.

Amen’s epiphany came when he saw a scan of his own brain and was shocked by how much older his brain looked than his year. He connected that to his own poor eating, sleeping, and mental activities.

“It is very important to realize you don’t have to believe every stupid thing you think,” he continued. “We never teach kids to manage their minds.” Amen has started a foundation to try and address these issues, going to the root source to tackle mental illness.

Amen closed by discussing how people who survive and thrive through stressful personal and social situations are flexible and recognize that these situations are temporary.

He authored the book Your Brain is Always Listening, available now wherever books are sold, and he runs the website BrainHealthAssessment.com, which has a free brain quiz.

Dr. Lee places importance on setting boundaries and voicing personal needs to leaders. She explained, “You want that trust to be built in a way where if you know that they’re struggling you can empower them with the resources, with tools, so that you can get to where you want to go together.”

Key self-awareness strategies for minimizing burnout include establishing a soul-filling morning routine and an evening routine that involves being present. “Your workday starts at least 24 hours before, but definitely the evening before, so if you’re not planning for the day ahead and mindful of what you’re doing that day before the workday, your workday is going to be affected.”

She also prioritizes goal setting in various life categories. To spur motivation, she says to reflect: “How much is doing this consistently getting me to where I want to go?” With goal setting, it’s not always about adding, but sometimes taking away and filling time with something that helps reach a goal.

Dr. Lee’s final advice? “Keeping the end picture in mind while still filling your own cup.” She added: “We can each reframe our approach to make sure we are doing what is best for ourselves and also those within our sphere of influence.”

“People don’t want to see you being super wishy-washy,” Burckle said. “When you’re a leader, they want to know you have the fortitude and strength to lead.”

But, leadership is more than strength. It also includes accountability and fairness. Leaders need to be friendly while also being strong. Fairness is critical, as while a decision might be hard, it’s essential to maintain fairness.

“The fair part, I think, is another huge thing as accountability and fairness,” Burckle said. “But the friendly part is the hugest thing. You don’t have to be a jerk to be a good leader.

It can be tough to ensure fairness when having a bad day. Burckle makes sure that when getting emotionally involved, she still makes fair and accountable decisions.

“The firm, fair, friendly was something when I was having a tough day, or I was getting too emotionally involved in something I would just say to myself ‘Is it fair and are you presenting this in the right light,’” Burckle said.

Dr. Domenech is the Executive Director of AASA(The Superintendent’s Association). He also spent 27 years as a superintendent. “We were founded in 1865 after the end of the Civil War by seven superintendents concerned about how to integrate black students into the public school system. Equity was the foundation and is still our mission,” Dr. Domenech said.

Dr. Domenech described the current landscape for superintendents as difficult. “The pandemic, civil unrest, and high turnover are all at the center.”While some issues that superintendents must address aren’t new—the pandemic certainly changed their role. “We have training and leadership programs with over 2200 participants to help them navigate this. On the pandemic, our position has been to follow the CDC guidelines,” Dr. Domenech shared.

However, those recommendations come with consequences of protesting and rebuking. Dr. Domenech also noted that many expected this school year to return to some level of normalcy. However, one-third of all districts have either had to close again or quarantine a significant number of students. Dr. Domenech also shared information about the 2025 Learning Initiative. The plan prioritizes a student-centered, equity-focused, and future-driven educational framework. “Academic was the top priority. Now, social-emotional well-being is at the top. Those with these issues don’t perform well in school. They aren’t going to learn because these emotional barriers block their ability to do so.”

“We help people break through barriers in their lives and tap into the human spirit,” Weihenmayer said, “and figuring out ways to reclaim their lives and elevating the world.”

As an educator, Erik Weihenmayer is focused on the “No Barriers” mindset, which focuses on believing that what’s within you is stronger than what’s in your way. As a blind person, he gets a lot of physical satisfaction from going into remote places and navigating them with his other senses.

“Like going to a top of a mountain and being able to use what blind people call ‘echolocation,’” Weihenmayer said, “which is listening for a sound, sound vibrations moving through space, bouncing off objects giving you information.”

Weihenmayer wasn’t born blind, and total blindness happened around the start of high school. He always had impaired vision, but he still could do everyday things like riding a bike. The change came gradually, but he felt like a prisoner in his mind for a while afterward.

“I remember sitting in the cafeteria listening to all the excitement passing me by,” he said.

At JCPS, Eddleman finds creative and unique ways to use federal and state grant funds to positively impact students. She often looks for ways to impact children that might not otherwise have opportunities. One of the ways she did this was through the Summer Leadership Institute for Teens.

The idea for the program started in the fall of 2020 when JCPS educators realized how much their students were missing by being at home. Their students at that point had spent the entire year virtual learning. They wanted to start some summer programming, as they didn’t know what the situation would be regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless, they wanted to have some plans in place.

“We were trying to think of things for our students in grades K through 12, and we, of course, wanted to have an academic focus,” Eddleman said, “but we knew that wasn’t the most important.”

More importantly, they knew they needed to get students back with their peers and focused on a new school year coming out of an entire year of virtual school. “We were planning programming for all grade levels, but when it came time for the older grade levels, we knew they needed something different,” Eddleman said.

Listen to hear more about how JCPS educators created the Summer Leadership Institute for Teens.

Change and transformation at the K12 level are stalling, even though many see its flaws. So, how does real change happen in this public education that will support all learners? Sharing his wealth of knowledge with Change Starts Here host Dustin Odham, author and speaker Michael B. Horn, Senior Strategist at Guild Education, shared his experiences and thoughts.

Horn labeled himself as a change agent and first attempted to disrupt education by co-writing a book with his Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. In discussing what he and Christensen learned writing this is “Systems are not designed to change. They perpetuate and can improve incrementally. Fundamental change often comes from the outside and requires different systems of learning."

The disruption initiative is to personalize education. “It’s kind of like disrupting tutoring, so everyone has that experience. Technology helps do that, but you can just layer it on the existing system,” Horn explained.

Personalization at scale is a probability, depending greatly on looking at learning from new perspectives that aren’t tied to the batching by age.

EdTech adoption occurred as Horn’s first book predicted. Yet, there’s still work to do with scaling blended learning. “We still haven’t thrown off the yoke of time-based learning of the grade-level curriculum. We need to shift to a mastery-based system."

Another key aspect of the disruption equation is that K12 depends on higher ed. “A good high school is one that gets kids into good colleges. So, it’s not starting at the earliest but with higher ed, which is misaimed. It’s hard to transform K12 unless we’re building a valuable workforce and creating lifelong learners,” Horn added.

The duo dug into why Michael does what she does and the impact of residential schools on students in Canada. “It just comes down to the kids,” Michael said. “I can’t even begin to capture what that means for me. I love the kids, and it’s always been about the kids. I think working with teachers, other principals, working with the parents, it’s all of that. When we’re all working toward doing the same thing, and that’s making lives better for our children, so they have a better chance to reach their dreams and goals, it’s the best of both worlds.”

Michael has spent her career in residential schools, which is also very important to her. At one time, those living on Canadian reservations were forced out of their homes as the push to segregate first nations peoples occurred. Children were forced into residential schools where they lost their identities, connection to family, and culture. “If you can imagine, five and six-year-olds being taken out of their homes, away from their parents,” Michael said, “and put into a school system that was run by different priests ... and they were taken out of their homes, no longer able to speak to their language, or practice their culture. It was a very traumatic time for many of these children.”

Check out this exclusive webinar where host, Dustin Odham talks to the three authors of our latest book, "The 4 Disciplines of Execution for Educators: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals."