Episode 42: Seven Lessons for School Leadership

Human relationships first. Academic study and arts training are co-curricular. Environment matters. Relentlessly make space for the things that matter most. Compliance is not the same thing as magic. Process matters and so does product. These are just a few of the ideas Jason Patera is obsessed with, which he brings daily to his work as the head of the Chicago Academy for the Arts.

Guest: Jason Patera

Resources, Transcript, and Expanded Show Notes

In This Episode:

• “Pretty much all you need to do at any time to change someone's life is decide to do it. That's it, right? It's not the facilities that changes someone's life. It's not the mission statement that changes someone's life. It's not the curriculum, it's the people. Right. And most of the time, all we have to do, especially with young people, you meet them where they're at, and, and you have this power to, to help transform their entire life.” (7:02)
• “What I promise to them is that I'm never going to be some random jerk in a suit who you've only met the day you've done something bad. And you're a teenager, so you're going to do something dumb. When that happens and we have to have a conversation about it, I endeavor for that to be our 40th conversation. So as we have to navigate this thing, we're doing it based on a human relationship and not one of the title that I have or the role that you play in the school.” (19:54)
• “Most of what we think are our limits are, are illusions, for ourselves personally, and for our communities. And a habit we can get into as school leaders is to fall into the trap that school is somehow already defined, and learning is somehow already defined, and procedures are somehow already defined. And we need to figure those out and do them, when in fact we have tremendous power to just decide what it's going to be.” (41:26)

Related Episodes: 40, 36, 34, 32, 27,15, 6

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