"Critical Friend" Kevin

At around the age my 7 year-old daughter began to understand what a job was, I became a high school principal...and I was quite proud when she told others she, too, hoped to be a principal one day. When I moved from a mid-sized private school to become an assistant principal at a large public high school, my daughter’s career ambitions changed along with me; she now hoped to be an assistant principal, which I thought was absolutely adorable. However, as she proclaimed these career possibilities, I attempted to impress upon her that good principals (and assistant principals) are frequently good teachers first. And as I hoped, she eventually began informally sharing what her approach to classroom teaching would look like. First and foremost, if you have a child this age, I hope you “play” school every once in a while. Both boys and girls can enjoy it! By putting your child in charge of her or his own classroom, even if you are the only student, you get a firm grasp on what your child i...

When you work in the “protocol” business, you hear that word a lot. However, when I hear the word protocol, I get excited! A few years ago, a colleague made us buttons that recognized us as a “Certified Protocologist.” I wore my button with pride! But unfortunately, not everyone appreciates protocols like I do. In most organizations that use protocols to accomplish work, you will run into people with “protocol fatigue.” These people may have trouble recognizing protocols as “tools” to help solve problems more efficiently and effectively and may instead recognize them as “new” and “different,” something that isn’t so appealing to some because it requires new material to be learned and retained. These people are going to exist, so how do we use new and exciting protocols without pushing our fatigued colleagues further into the mud? First and foremost, I encourage you to avoid using the word “protocol,” when you do so. Once, as I worked with a group of teachers, I needed them to engag...

This post is for January 8. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: https://goo.gl/fi3gyz If you are an educator, it is highly likely that you have “set some limits” responding to escalating misbehavior in the classroom. For instance, if “Johnny” refused to do his work, you may have helped him understand that he would have to eat his lunch with you - working on the assignment - if he couldn’t use class time to do so. Clarifying a consequence so another individual has an opportunity to choose to comply (or not) is setting a limit...and if you’re like me, you have learned a thing or two about setting limits as your career has progressed. There have been times when a student’s misbehavior or non-compliance has caused me to dedicate my time before or after school to enforcing a consequence. Similarly, I have found myself spending time before or after school with colleagues who have failed to do their work independent...

This post is for January 7. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here:  https://goo.gl/fi3gyz If you’ve ever been to a concert, you know the feeling. Almost always, the time the concert is supposed to begin and the time it actually begins is very different. This may lead to some frustration, but rockstars get away with it...because they are rockstars! I am not a rockstar. Sometimes, I like to act like I’m a rockstar. In fact, as a teacher, I went a few years with a class policy that required students to clap as I entered the room to begin class. It was ingenious. No matter what conversations the students were having before class began, the bell would ring and they would stop talking, choosing instead to applaud wildly as I jumped around the room like Stephen Colbert beginning his show. ...but alas, I am not actually a rockstar. Consequently, when I facilitate a training or a meeting of any sort, I start on time. When meetings ...

This post is for January 6. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: Inspiration and Serendipity  At a recent training, we went around the room and allowed each individual to identify her or his “core value.” This topic is one that I love, particularly because one of my most embarrassing interview moments came with this topic. After teaching for 8 years, I interviewed for an administrative position...and when I was asked to identify a core value, I froze like an alligator in the arctic. I never had given my core values much thought! From there on out, not only did I have a core value at the ready, I made sure the students I taught could identify one as well. Cleverly, because I taught high school English, I used my core values lesson as an opportunity to show students how to turn adjectives into abstract nouns. However, in my instruction of this concept, I never neglected to share my interview faux pas. I wri...

This post is for January 5. To understand why that matters, I hope you will read my post from January 1. You can find it by clicking here: January 1 In a preview of the Netflix Series American Vandal, Polygon’s Julia Alexander calls the show “juvenile,” a word that was also used by a friend of mine when I told her the show’s premise. However, in the same sentence of her review, Alexander also calls this mockumentary “serious” and “mature.” She then uses her forum to proclaim the show’s brilliance. ...and for so many reasons, I agree. I agree as an adult thinker who is capable of seeing the brilliance of a show built on satire; I also agree as a non-judgmental guy who appreciates a show that challenges the psychology that causes humans to presume guilt and to close-mindedly accept things at face value. But more importantly, I agree with the brilliance of this show as an educator who has spent years surrounded by teenage humans. If you haven’t seen the show, I could proba...

This post is for January 4. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here: January 1 Each day, as adults, we make countless decisions that have a variety of consequences. Whether you are an educator (which many of my readers are), a stay-at-home dad or mom, or a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, you have decisions to make...and most of our decisions affect others. In fact, Dr. Joel Hoomans, a writer for the Leading Edge Journal, claimed in a 2015 article that we make 35,000 decisions a day, and most of them - even what and when we choose to eat - can have an effect on others! Last week, I had a chance to attend the Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training offered by the Crisis Prevention Institute. While this training covers dozens of topics, one of my favorite new understandings was derived from the “Decision-Making Matrix” introduced in the program. This matrix is a nine-square grid that asks decision-makers to consider the “severi...

One of my favorite protocols provided by the National School Reform Faculty in its Critical Friends Group New Coaches’ training is the “Success-Analysis Protocol.” In schools, I have typically used this protocol at the end of a semester or school year to encourage self-reflection among teachers and to open the eyes of teachers to the things their colleagues are most proud of. In Western Civilization culture, “bragging” is often frowned upon, so we are unlikely to do it unless we are surrounded by close friends or family. This protocol, however, makes bragging okay! The protocol first asks participants to identify a success from a given period of time (i.e. first semester, this school year, in the past 5 years), whatever the facilitator has chosen that to be. Participants are then given time to jot down as many details about that success. What was it? Who did it affect? Why was this success so meaningful to you? Then, in groups of four, a rotation begins. A first “presenter” shares hi...

This post is for January 2. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here: January 1 One of my favorite pieces of the NSRF Critical Friends Group New Coaches’ Training is the existence of “Agreements.” And admittedly, this was a component that I initially rejected as unimportant when I initially participated in the training. I was developing my ability to work with other adults...and adults don’t need structured group dynamic “agreements,” right? Eventually, my appreciate of Agreements grew as I recognized they weren’t just about keeping my colleagues on task. Much more so, Agreements are about pushing one another to a higher state of awareness, as we strive to gather and understand the collective wisdom in the room. Furthermore, adhering to Agreements that are developed as a group tend to have positive effects outside of the group, as well. For instance, an Agreement that many groups adopt is to “assume good intentions” and to “...

This post is for January 1 (officially); I hope you will read further to understand why! My 2018 began in a way that symbolized how my life had been in 2017: hectic . In a Milwaukee hotel room with three kids, we celebrated the clock striking Midnight before hurrying to bed, mindful of a 5:30 am flight back to St. Louis. I cannot complain about the “hecticness” of this trip, as it was one that we took for fun. However, as I laid in bed reflecting on my New Year’s Resolution, I simply knew that it wasn’t going to work...my life was too “hectic.” Ambitiously, my resolution for the new year was to write a post for this blog for each day of the year . At a training in July, a school district I worked with in Maryland believed heavily in reflective journaling. They distributed small notebooks at their development sessions and encouraged employees to be purposeful in taking the time to stop and jot down ideas and illustrations as new ideas came to them. They believed in harnessing the w...