Have you ever had a school year when you questioned whether or not you should continue teaching? Oh, this year? lol... It's true that there are a lot of teachers who are challenged more this year than ever before, and it's also true that there are some teachers who are thriving or who have questioned their career choice in years past.

Meet Daryl Williams, K-8 instructional coach, former middle school math teacher and Teacher of the Year (Twice!) and founder of Pursuit of Excellence. His message of how he fought his way through a tough first year of teaching and when he knew that he needed to stay will resonate with you. His message of hope for kids and teachers is infectious and inspiring. Find Daryl on all social media (even TikTok!) at mypursuitofexcellence and definitely visit his website at www.mypursuitofexcellence.com

Veteran teacher Tim Cifelli-Volmer (or @astroruhroh on TikTok) talks about what brought him into education and what has kept him joyful and motivated. He shares that comedic sarcasm, for him, has served as his most effective classroom management tool and shares advice for teachers who may be struggling right now during this difficult year. I dare you to listen to this episode and not smile ear to ear!

Alisa Kay is from Ukraine. While she, along with most of her family members live in England, most of her immediate family members happened to be in Ukraine the day the Russian invasion began.

Alisa, who I met in our digital entrepreneur mentoring program, acted quickly by starting a fundraiser so that she would know exactly where and to whom to donate the money. I'd say she's the definition of the Ukrainian strength we've seen projected all over social media and MSM over the past two weeks. Click the link below to donate.

Alisa-Kay.com/actlouder

Season 1, which began in July 2021, focused on what teachers can do to keep themselves from burning out and by October, it was clear that teachers could not manage this alone. And while this has always been true and while good leadership has always been important, the last two years have shown us that leadership usually makes the critical difference in whether teachers and school leaders stay in their roles.

Therefore, the focus for season 2 was the leadership needed to keep teachers and leaders in their roles and feeling effective in their roles. Here is what we learned.

Season 3 will have an aspiration theme to it.

Sunflower bangle mentioned during the show (50% of the proceeds support aid to Ukraine): https://lucadanni.com/products/yellow-sunflower-bangle-bracelet

Visit my website: www.drkeeganjedele.com to learn about the ways we are providing direct support to teachers and leaders!

4 Types of Positive Influence Leaders

1. Supportive - You can do it

2. Teacher - identifies and brings out your strengths

3. Motivating - helps you find your true north, your purpose

4. Role Model - Provides an example, “Oh, this is how you’re supposed to act”

   1. Walk the talk

1. Back of the book - self assessment survey - get a reading on which of the 4 styles is your PRIMARY style

   1. Take the assessment

   2. Read the book to understand your style even better and to expand your skills in the other types

2. How do we cope with negative influences?

   1. Turn the negativity into motivation

   2. Use the negativity as a learning experience

1. Impact of the pandemic on leaders

   1. Emotional impact -

      1. how do I control my emotions and still make good decisions

      2. The mental health of those who I lead

      3. The workday. Never ended - going home to stresses and strains at home (financial, relational, health, kids learning virtually)

      4. Murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor

         1. People within organizations impacted by racism

            1. Nordstrom CEO flew to Florida to meet with police who had mistreated an employee to ensure his employees were ok

         2. Businesses having to close due to riots

   2. Disruption of normal work protocols

      1. Things were not the same

         1. Healthcare -

            1. we had never seen anything like it

            2. We had trouble diagnosing it because of wait times when we could have diagnosed other diseases

2. What went well and what didn’t

   1. Increase in collaboration and innovation

      1. Owner of 21 Red Robin restaurants - instead of competing with each other as usual, they collaborated and shared ideas

      2. Leaders pushed back on rules that came from above

         1. Innovation - is it serving our customers?

         2. Instead of just accepting it as “the way things have always been”

   2. Community of Caring

      1. Culture focused more on employee well-being

      2. Hospital CEOs walking the floors

      3. Really leaning into vulnerability - we are human, too

   3. Empowerment

   4. Challenge - hard to keep up walking around

3. What lessons did you learn?

   1. Less power, more listening

   2. It’s important to be humble, fallible and show my team that I care about them

   3. Being accessible is important - and be approachable

   4. Value of empowerment

      1. Employees are capable of so much more

         1. Creativity and day to day responsibilities

It was very stressful for many leaders

[email protected]

First FIVE people who write with their story and request a copy of the book will get a signed copy of the book.

Give your address

Brief vignette about how Covid and the pandemic impacted

Mention you heard about this on the DissectEd Podcast

HRD press.com

Amazon

Follow Glenn and Michael on LinkedIn

@GlennParker

@MichaelParker

Blog:

Stories of positive influence

To register for the classroom management webinar, visit:

www.drkeeganjedele.com

An article published in Education Week about teachers pushing for principals and other administrators to spend time teaching classes is circulating again, and as more and more articles are also going around about the stress of these pandemic school years on school leaders, I give my perspective.

As always, you can reach out to me [email protected]

“We all make mistakes, and we all learn.” This is the mindset we need to stay in in order to be the educators and leaders we need to be to make true systemic and equitable change.

Dr. Dennis explains what is meant by the phrase “power majority” and why that’s the lens we need to use to determine whether or not our practices are truly equitable. It is so hard to capture the totality of this episode in episode notes, so you’ll have to give the episode a listen to really gain a true understanding of the dynamic conversation we had.

Please stay open, reflective and change-seeking with me not only through this episode but as we continue our work in education.

To reach me or to learn more about our classroom management trainings, visit www.drkeeganjedele.com

To learn more or to reach Dr. Dennis, visit https://365diversity.com

Dr. Kimya Nuru Dennis is a community advocate, sociologist and criminologist, educator, and researcher. Dr. Dennis connects with local, national, and international communities, schools, businesses, and organizations.

Born and raised in the city of Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Dennis lived in North Carolina for 17 years and now lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr. Dennis is founder and CEO of 365 Diversity that helps to change policies and actions, curriculum and class materials for K-12 schools and colleges-universities.

365 Diversity also helps to change academic programs, career training, and policies and evaluations for medical and health schools, medical and health organizations, and medical and health facilities.

Services provided are listed on the 365 Diversity website and include curriculum change sessions, policy change sessions, and assessment and evaluation sessions.

Do you think that outstanding leaders only come out of fancy, expensive Ivy League School programs? Think again. While this is something I’ve known for over 25 years, Glenn and Michael Parker, a father-son duo who have had successful careers in leading highly successful companies and have conducted dozens of interviews with highly effective leaders, explain to us their findings about positive influence leaders and how literally anyone can become a positive influence leader.

Author of some 15 books, Glenn is a leadership and team effectiveness consultant to some of the world's leading organizations. Most recently, he is the co-author (with his son, Michael) of Positive Influence: The Leader Who Helps People Become Their Best Self.

Send Audience To:

www.thepositiveinfluenceleader.com

Positive Influence is available from the publisher, HRD Press at: www.hrdpress.com or 800-822-2801

It is also available from Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3aSglzN

Have a question or an idea for future podcast episodes? Email me at [email protected]

Looking to elevate your classroom management? Visit www.drkeeganjedele.com

A healthy school community or culture is one where ALL people in that community feel supported, valued, needed, challenged, connected and effective. Today, I am going to focus on the adults in our school communities and how to make sure they feel supported, valued, needed, and connected.

These are lessons or conclusions I’ve come to over the last 9 years in school leadership and they draw upon my experiences as a teacher, my conversations and relationships with colleagues and students as well as connections I’ve made along the way with complete strangers in our crazy world of education.

If any of these resonate with you or if you’d like to talk about these lessons further, either privately or on a podcast episode, reach out. You can reach me at [email protected]

On today’s episode, Dr. Rick Chromey explains that students misbehave for three reasons:

1. Belonging

2. Boredom

3. Beliefs

And he gives a spectacular apology about being proactive versus reactive when it comes to classroom management and students. He’s engaging, he’s spot on, and he has an incredible personal story that has helped shape his work in this area.

Check out his work and his book at www.rickchromey.com

Register for the free webinar: “5 Simple and Effective Classroom Management Strategies That Will Work NOW” or purchase the full self-paced online course and workbook by visiting www.drkeeganjedele.com