FocusED: An educational leadership podcast that uncovers what is working in our schools.

Restorative Justice in Schools with Nathan Maynard and Luke Roberts

This is Season 4, Episode 14 of FocusED, and it features our guests, Nathan Maynard and Luke Roberts. It was originally recorded live for a live audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Nathan and Luke say about restorative justice, school discipline practices, social and emotional learning, school leadership…and so much more.

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Nathan Maynard and Luke Roberts Bring Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Nathan Maynard is a renowned global leader in discipline and restorative practices. He has over 15 years experience as a facilitator of the work throughout juvenile justice and educational settings.

He co-authored the Washington Post bestseller Hacking School Discipline, which is now an international bestseller in 21 countries. He was awarded as “Youth Worker of the Year” in Indiana. Nathan also is the Co-Founder of Highfive--international restorative practices training group and the first restorative behavior support software for schools.

His passion for restorative practices has helped in addressing issues of bullying, cyberbullying, and older peer coercion. His work was noticed by the Metropolitan Police, and he was asked to help Police Officers become more empathetic to young people.

Dr. Luke joined High Five (with Nathan) in 2022 where he brings his passion of championing young people's voices and experiences with the power to change the system. As Chief Innovation Officer, he finds engaging and exciting ways to equip children with conflict resolution skills as well as future developments for High Five.

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FocusED Show Notes with Nathan Maynard and Luke Roberts

Nathan started with his definition of restorative practices. Joe underscored the relational aspect of the definition.

Luke emphasized the process. “If everything is restorative, nothing is restorative.” His question: are we repairing a relationship or building one from scratch?

Nathan talked about how kids these days don’t respond to fear because they’re just not scared of adults like they used to be.

Luke brings up a great point: we start with students as “the offender” when we talk about behavior. They’re still students.

TJ asked a hard question about students and guns in schools. Nathan passes it to Luke, lovingly of course. Luke shifted the conversation from “fear” to “embarrassment.” Students need to claim power by coping with embarrassment…something to help them feel confident.

Nathan pushed us to reflect about whether or not students are feeling ostracized and whether or not the school and the adults in it are compounding the problem.

Don’t miss what Nathan says about our role in not glamorizing behaviors.

One question that comes from the conversation is about the quality of our relationships in schools. What’s the quality of my relationship with [insert a misbehaving student’s name]?

Luke talked about confirmation bias. Sometimes we look for the things we’ve heard about kids. Story’s matter.

We asked Luke about his interviews with students. Here’s what they say:

Am I being treated fairly?

Are the adults genuinely caring? Do they care about me? Did they give me time?

Luke talked about the difference between the content of an experience and the quality of it.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

Learning to “Be Great” with Dwight Carter

This is Season 4, Episode 13 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Dwight Carter. It was originally recorded live for a virtual audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Dwight Carter tells us about being great as a school leader, his five principles of leadership…and so much more.

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Dwight Carter Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dwight Carter is a nationally recognized school leader from Central OH and has been an educator for 27 years. He is currently the Director of Student Support Systems for the Eastland-Fairfield Career and Technical Schools District.

Here are just a few of his awards and accolades:

He was inducted into the Jostens Renaissance Educator Hall of Fame.

He was named a National Association of Secondary School Principals Digital Principal of the Year

He was an Academy of Arts and Science Education High School Principal of the Year

He was the 2015 Ohio Alliance of Black School Educators Principal of the Year

And he was a 2021 Columbus Afrocentric Early College Sankofa Emerging Leader Award winner.

He is the co-author of three books: What’s In Your Space? Five Steps to Better School and Classroom Design (Corwin, 2015), Leading Schools in Disruptive Times: How to Survive Hyper-change (Corwin 2017), and the second edition of Leading Schools in Disruptive Times (Corwin, 2021).

His newest book is Be Great: Five Principles to Improve School Culture from the Inside Out.

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FocusED Show Notes with Dwight Carter

Dwight starts with a simple definition of culture: the accepted behaviors within the organization.

Dwight runs us through the five competencies of school culture.

Be Grateful

Be Relational

Be Enthusiastic

Be Authentic

Be teachable

Joe asks about simple steps that adults can take. Dwight responds with the first principle about gratitude.

Dwight talks about “what we can control” and brings up the topic of hyper-change. We have total control over our attitude and actions.

Don’t miss what Dwight says about the difference between being a “doormat” and a “doorway.”

Dwight reminds us of a Todd Whitaker quote: “When the principal sneezes, everyone catches a cold.”

What Dwight talks about in terms of “teachable” reminded us of our work in an effort to create learning cultures.

Don’t miss what he says about the difference between “being judgemental” and “evaluating others.”

Dwight is calling for a shift from teaching to learning--moving from a focus on what teachers are doing to a focus on what students are doing.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

Leading Fearlessly with Dr. Douglas Reeves

This is Season 4, Episode 12 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Dr. Douglas Reeves. It was originally recorded live for a virtual audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Dr. Reeves says about leading in fear and how to avoid it, changing old practices (like grading)…and so much more.

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Douglas Reeves Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Reeves is the author of more than 40 books and more than 100 articles on leadership and education. He has twice been named to the Harvard University Distinguished Authors Series and was named the Brock International Laureate for his contributions to education.

His career of work in professional learning led to the Contribution to the Field Award from the National Staff Development Council, now Learning Forward. Doug has worked in 50 states and more than 40 countries. His volunteer activities include FinishTheDissertation.org, providing free and non-commercial support for doctoral students, and The SNAFU Review, publishing the essays, poetry, stories, and artwork of disabled veterans.

Doug lives in Boston. He Tweets @DouglasReeves, blogs at CreativeLeadership.net, and can be reached at 1.781.710.9633.

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FocusED Show Notes with Dr. Douglas Reeves

We started with the concept of fear. Why so much fear in schools? Dr. Reeves makes it simple: if the only people talking are the ones who are volunteering or in charge then we have a fear-filled environment.

Joe highlights what Dr. Reeves says in the book about special education. Doug riffs on the fact that special education practices are just good teaching practices.

One focus of the podcast was all about the need for taking risks and not getting things right the first time.

T.J. asked Doug to talk about candor in schools and the importance of it.

Joe mentions Atul Gawande’s video about feedback. Dr. Reeves follows up with the words of Howard Gardner and Richard Elmore and their sentiment about thinning--I used to think and I don’t think anymore.

You don’t want to miss what Doug says about “promises-made and promises-kept.”

He talked about credibility and the strategies we can use to build our own credibility.

What he says about decision-making and options is powerful.

Doug mentioned Daniel Kahneman’s “sunk cost fallacy.”

We asked Doug what would improve the student experience in every school, and he talked about grading and the use of the average.

He calls for more non-fiction writing in all subjects.

Doug mentions a book he read last week that he calls “the single best book on student discipline.” Changeable by Stuart Ablon

Joe asked about remembering facts and applying what you read, and Dr. Reeves promotes Zotero as a personal assistant of sorts.

Don’t miss what Dr. Reeves says about making a local impact with his work and measuring that.

Doug has a call-to-action for daily support for new teachers and the need for all of us to share as much as we can with each other about the difference that we all make as educators.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

This is Season 4, Episode 11 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Laurie Barron. It was originally recorded live for a virtual audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Laurie says about strengthening school and district communities as a teacher and leader…and so much more.

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Laurie Barron Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Laurie Barron is in her twenty-seventh year in education, serving as a high school English teacher, a middle school assistant principal, and nine years as a middle school principal.

Since 2013, she has served as the superintendent of the Evergreen School District in Kalispell, Montana. Barron holds a bachelors in English Education from the University of Georgia, an masters in Supervision and Administration from the University of West Georgia, and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Sarasota.

The following are just some of her accolades:

National Superintendent Certification through AASA

National Board Certified Teacher

Teacher of the Year

STAR Teacher

Georgia Middle School Principal of the Year

National Middle School Principal of the Year

School Administrators of Montana G.V. Erickson Award

Empowered Superintendent of the Year by the Montana Educational Technologists Association

Montana Superintendent of the Year

She has co-authored 3 books:

We Belong: 50 Strategies to Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management (ASCD, 2021)

Middle School: A Place to Belong and Become (AMLE, 2018)

What Parents Need to Know about Common Core and Other College- and Career-Ready Standards (World Book, 2015)

Dr. Barron is a national speaker, consultant, and leadership coach and she says she’s living the dream in northwest Montana, with her husband Daniel, where together they enjoy spending time with family watching Georgia Bulldogs football, snow skiing, camping, rafting, hiking, and watching their daughter Emma play college soccer.

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FocusED Show Notes with Laurie Barron

Laurie started out the conversation with the fact that the concept of instructional leadership may have confused us during NCLB into forgetting about the whole child. Her book brings that back to the center of the conversation with a sense of belonging.

Joe asks Laurie to get granular about strategies for helping students understand and feel that they matter in school. Her response: Trusting relationships are the biggest key.

Laurie breaks down a timeline for engagement:

Every classroom door, every morning.

Every classroom visited, every week.

Feedback to every teacher every month.

Twice a year check-ins with every direct report.

Dr. Barron talked about earning the credibility to give teachers ideas that they’ll use. Part of it comes from visibility; the other part comes from our ability to have tough conversations.

Laurie talked about the level of accountability that comes from having crucial conversations. Timing is everything.

Laurie talked about the myth that holding high standards will push people out. She says that we might need to “love harder” and “explain more.”

Show Notes @ theschoolhouse302.com

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez is the award-winning founder of HEART in Mind Consulting, a company dedicated to helping schools and organizations integrate Social Emotional Learning in their practices, products, and learning communities. She has worked with schools, districts, and organizations to guide SEL implementation efforts, including training teachers and leadership teams, and provided guidance to educational technology and media companies to help them integrate SEL in their products.

An educator who has worked with children and adults internationally, Dr. Martínez is a faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College, educating aspiring principals in Emotional Intelligence. She has conducted extensive research in the SEL field with a focus on SEL implementation, principals’ Emotional Intelligence, teacher preparation, and school climate. She frequently blogs about how to incorporate SEL in teaching practices, leadership, and parenting.

She received her Doctor of Philosophy, magna cum laude, in Quality and Innovation in Education from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2014, she was awarded the American Education Research Association Graduate Student Award for Excellence in SEL Research from the SEL Special Interest Group.

Dr. Martínez started her career as a special education teacher and administrator. A native of the Costa Brava in Spain, she currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.

Buy her book, Teaching with the HEART in Mind: A Complete Educator’s Guide to Social Emotional Learning.

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FocusED Show Notes with Lorea Martinez

Don’t miss what Lorea says about teaching SEL: “We wouldn’t let reading teachers teach the skills of reading without knowing how to read well themselves.”

Lorea talks about the need to practice SEL in front of students. They don’t just learn because we teach them the skills. They learn because we show them.

This conversation doesn’t gloss over the incredible needs in schools today, both socially and academically.

Lorea talked about the system changes that need to be made for SEL to work.

Dr. Martinez talks about the fact that we’re teaching teachers how to teach students but we’re ignoring the fact that we also need to help teachers to help themselves.

Don’t miss what she says about her HEART acronym.

We discuss the need for teachers and leaders to process their emotions so that they don’t come up against a wall when they’ve swallowed them for too long.

The E in HEART is “elect your responses,” which is about our behavioral patterns and making better choices than what we do on autopilot.

Lorea provides listeners with specific strategies to use. Don’t miss what she says about taking the weather report with popsicle sticks.

We discuss the need for leaders to have real conversations about how people feel.

We love the fact that she highlights the need for leaders to celebrate and praise the staff. We have to continue to find the positive moments and bright spots.

Joe follows up to underscore the importance of praise, using our specific praise model, and the way we need to be very intentional about celebrations and individual accomplishments.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

Lainie Rowell Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Lainie Rowell is an educator and international consultant who specializes in working with other educators to find innovative and sustainable ways to transform teaching and learning. Her areas of focus include community building, learner-driven design, online/blended learning, and professional learning.

During her 25 years in education, Lainie has taught elementary, secondary, and higher education. She also served in a district-level leadership position supporting 22,000 students and 1,200 teachers at 33 schools.

As a consultant, Lainie's client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Lainie is a TEDx Speaker with more than 15 years of experience presenting at regional, national, and international conferences, including Learning Forward, the Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC), Building Learning Communities (BLC), and the Leadership 3.0 Symposium.

Her work has been highlighted in many publications, including Edutopia, OC Family Magazine, ASCD K-12 Leadership SmartBrief, Getting Smart, and PBS NewsHour.

Since 2014, Lainie has been a consultant for the Orange County Department of Education's Institute for Leadership Development, facilitating professional learning for administrators.

Learn more about Lainie at LainieRowell.com and see highlights of her work at Linktr.ee/LainieRowell. You can also subscribe to her newsletter at LainieRowell.com/subscribe.

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FocusED Show Notes with Lainie Rowell

Lainie talked about her first book launching right at the start of COVID and what she began to feel as a leader as she recognized the immense weight of the crisis. Everyone needs gratitude.

Lainie talked about the science that backs the practice of gratitude. When we work on our ability to feel gratitude, we release “happiness chemicals” into our brains and bodies.

Don’t miss what she says about increasing your baseline happiness.

Joe brings up Todd Rose and equifinality. Don’t miss Lainie’s response to this.

Her “how to” is inspiring because there are so many ways that people can practice gratitude.

Listen to what she says about her career: I changed lanes without a turn signal.

Because of our work with feedback, we really connected to what she says about praise. We need to ensure that our ratios of praise to correction are balanced.

Gratitude works best when it’s natural.

With 20 examples from 18 contributors in the book, school leaders are bound to find first, second, and third steps to creating a culture of gratitude.

Lainie calls out Dwight Carter and Joshua Stamper for their examples from the book as well as the need to be authentic with our gratitude.

If Lainie could improve anything in schools, she would work on the praise to correction ratio.

Lainie talked about CASEL’s three signature practices.

Laurie Santos, James Clear, Robert Emmons, and Katie Milkman are four people who Lainie follows outside of education.

Big reveal at the end: Lainie’s next book!

Lainie Rowell Quotes from FocusED

The best way to change someone else’s behavior is to change our behavior first. ~ Lainie Rowell

Next time you’re working with someone who you want to change, consider what you’ve noticed that they do well first. ~ Lainie Rowell

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

This is Season 4, Episode 8 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Elizabeth Jorgensen. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Liz says about student learning habits, process-based assessments, writing for an audience, making connections outside of the classroom…and so much more.

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Elizabeth Jorgensen Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Elizabeth Jorgensen has been published in many popular journals, including the English Journal, Edutopia, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture (Harvard University), Brevity, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Writers Who Care, Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, Wisconsin English Journal, Skinny Poetry Journal, and Gyroscope Review, and more.

Her book on process-based assessment, Hacking Student Learning Habits, was published by Times 10 Publications in 2022, and her most recent book was released in October 2022, Gwen Jorgensen: USA’s First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete, which was written to help young people follow a dream and to focus on the process

Just to name some of her accolades:

She was named one of 20 of America’s Most Inspiring Educators with an award called The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation Teacher Innovator.

She has been the Arrowhead Union High School Teacher of the Year, the Graduate of the Last Decade from Carroll University, the Lucille S. Pooley Award winner for Successful Techniques in Teaching Composition in the Schools of Wisconsin, the Jarvis E. Bush winner from the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English, and a recipient of the PBS Innovative Educator Award.

You can learn more on her website: lizjorgensen.weebly.com.

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FocusED Show Notes with Elizabeth Jorgensen

Mark Barnes found her on Facebook and through her articles he felt like she had a book, which was the inception of Hacking Student Learning Habits.

Don’t miss what Elizabeth says about authentic purpose, writing for an audience.

We need to find a purpose for the assignments outside of the grade.

Elizabeth uses examples for authentic assessments from across the content areas. It’s all about the process and real world ways that we connect students’ assignments to actual problems outside of the school.

The audience has a lot to do with how authentic we can make the students’ work—who will see their work outside of the teacher and the grading system?

It was really cool to hear Elizabeth talk about Sijo, a Korean form of poetry. The way she connected her love of learning poetry to her students’ interest is amazing. Check out her book about it, Sijo:

Listen to Elizabeth talk about inspiring young people to set goals, including her story about there not being enough books about athletes for girls.

You can’t miss what she says about the limitation of rubrics for process-based assessments.

Elizabeth: One thing that administrators can do to support teaching, learning, and risk-taking is to connect like-minded teachers in the school around a particular topic.

As always with our guests, Elizabeth mentions Twitter as a go-to place for learning. She also mentions using a thought-partner, for her it’s her mother, who is a former teacher.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

Mike Roberts Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Mike Roberts has been a middle school Educator for more than twenty years. In that time, he has taught English, has been an instructional coach, and is currently an Assistant Principal. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous awards for his outstanding teaching, including being named the 2014 Utah English Teacher of the Year and the 2018 Utah Middle Level Teacher of the Year. Mike also teaches college classes focused on classroom management and literacy in the content areas. He has served on many educational committees, and has been a featured speaker at dozens of state, regional, and national conferences.

Mike's most recent book, Hacking Modern Teaching - 10 Ways to Build Student Engagement, Maximize Success, and Inspire Authentic Learning, offers a variety of strategies to help teachers and students thrive within today's modern classroom. Mike is also the author of Chasing Greatness: 26.2 Ways Teaching is Like Running a Marathon, where he shares advice from some of the best teachers and runners from across the country as a way to help you reach your highest potential. Mike is also the author of Hacking Classroom Management - 10 Ideas to Help You Become the Type of Teacher They Make Movies About, which identifies a variety of strategies that empower students in the learning process.

When he's not teaching or presenting, Mike can usually be found running ultra-marathons in the mountains. And even after all these years, he's still not sure which takes more energy...a week with middle schoolers or running a 100 mile race.

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FocusED Show Notes with Mike Roberts

Mike starts the show with a reminder that we need to take risks, show students more about ourselves by connecting beyond the curriculum, and try new ways to support learning.

We’re not so far into this podcast episode before Mike is challenging the status quo of teaching the way that we were taught.

Joe asked about “engagement beyond the curriculum” and Mike talked about using simple themes in books to apply that concept to popular music. The connections are key.

Mike says he’s the king of the cameos. Don’t miss what he says about how teachers and leaders can “show up” without losing all of their nights.

Teachers need to be authentic to who they are; don’t miss what Mike says about authenticity and teacher style.

You want to hear what Mike says about seating charts and late work--some is better than none and late is better than never.

MIke’s insights on using self-assessments is powerful. Too many of us jump to conclusions without trying the new strategy.

Mike’s explanation of classroom management is really about creating classroom culture, doing school with students versus to them. Joe delineates this between a controlled environment and an empowering one.

We talked about self-reported grades as having a high effective size.

Mike talks about providing students with tons of options--the more options the better--and the benefits of this for teachers.

He talks about giving students a challenge: “do something that impresses me.”

Mike talked about setting goals and bite-size challenges. Big goals are overwhelming but small ones are inspiring. Don’t miss what he says about manageable chunks and 1% better.

He talked about Jim Knight being an influence when he was an instructional coach.

Don’t miss why Mike follows Malcolm Gladwell, Jocko Willink, and David Goggins.

Mike wants to help lift up teachers to help them to be the best that they can be.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

Christine Ravesi-Weinstein Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

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Christine Ravesi-Weinstein serves as a high school Assistant Principal in Massachusetts and previously worked as a high school science department chair for four years as well as classroom teacher for 15. Diagnosed with anxiety and depression at 23, Christine began her journey towards mental wellness. She began a non-profit organization in June of 2017 aimed at removing the stigma of mental illness and promoting physical activity as a means to cope with anxiety.

As an avid writer and educator, Christine became passionate about bridging the two with her advocacy for mental health. Since March of 2019, she has had numerous nationally published articles, including the number one most read article of 2019 on eSchool News (she also had the number six and eight most read articles in that year). She has also published articles with District Administration, the Teach Better Team, Tech & Learning, and SmartBrief.

Not only is she a highly sought after speaker, Christine is an MASCD Board Member, author of the books Anxious (by Times 10 Publications), Fighting Your Inner Voice, and Disrupt the Status Quo (both by Code Breaker, Inc.).

Follow her work on Twitter @RavesiWeinstein and on YouTube at The Runner's High.

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FocusED Show Notes with Christine Ravesi-Weinstein

Christine and her co-authors focused on the four areas of the book because everything fell into those four categories, including culture.

Joe asked Christine to dive deeper into the conversation about positive toxicity.

Don’t miss what she says about perspective building.

Christine talks to us about strategies for listening and really hearing what others have to say.

The seed of toxicity is the parking lot conversation that’s not productive for anyone.

It’s the million decisions that we have to make in a day that prevent us from listening. ~ Christine Ravesi-Weinstein

Sometimes the reason for our lack of failure is that we forgot what the goal is.

Don’t miss what Christine says about the power of face-to-face conversations.

Christine wants to eliminate numerical grading to improve the student experience. She believes that this can change the SEL landscape for kids.

You have to hear what she says about Jim Hensen.

Chrinstine shared that she reads a lot of books about running.

She mentions Edutopia and Code Breaker as places to go for leading and learning.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.

This is Season 4, Episode 5 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Danny Steele. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Education, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, and The School House 302. Don’t miss what Danny says about Essential Truths for Principals…and so much more.

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Danny Steele Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Danny Steele is in his 30th year of education, and this school year marks his second as the principal at Homewood Middle School. Prior to this position, he has served as an Assistant Professor of Instructional Leadership, principal, assistant principal, teacher, and coach.

In 2005, Steele was recognized as the “Secondary Assistant Principal of the Year” for the state of Alabama. And in 2016, he was recognized as Alabama’s “Secondary Principal of the Year.”

He has presented at numerous state and national conferences and spoken in school districts around the country.

Danny has written or co-written five books. He has an undergraduate degree in History from Covenant College; an M.A. in History from the University of Alabama, Birmingham; and an Educational Specialist degree in Educational Administration as well as Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership--both from Samford University. He resides with his wife and three children in Birmingham, Alabama.

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FocusED Show Notes with Danny Steele

Danny talks about the inception of the book and how Todd Whitacker pitched the idea as something that would be very broad for educators but was then split into two books: Essential Truths for Teachers and Essential Truth for Principals.

Danny talks about the fact that we can get lost in doing what we’re doing and forget the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Don’t miss what he says about getting swallowed up by the administrivia.

He talks about the difference in the focus between being a teacher and being an administrator.

You have to hear what he says about the sign above his door and why it’s there.

We love what Danny says about instructional leadership. It’s not about improving teachers as much as it is creating the conditions for them to improve themselves.

He talked about “cultural conditions” and why that’s so important for teachers and diminishing burnout.

Fundamentally, teachers are looking for support. Danny talked about relationships and building them so that teachers can thrive in the school.

Danny talks about the fact that a collaborative approach to teaching and learning is the key to improving the student experience.

He says that we ought to focus on what students are doing, not just what the teachers are teaching.

Check out what he says about skills beating content every day.

Danny talks about being a huge fan of Todd Whitaker and points to several of Todd’s resources.

He calls out the book, Hacking Learning Centers by Starr Sackstein

Danny mentions Adam Grant and his book, Think Again.

He talks about the need for us to do more work on race and equity in schools.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ theschoolhouse302.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email.

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.