One Book led to Another...

I remember well those days of article rejection, just after I completed my PhD. The message rang loud and clear: "You don't belong here." Of course, those were not the exact words, but this was my interpretation. I felt more at home riding a career compiled of public, charter, international and independent schools. While I was in principal, director, and academic roles, the role that kept me humble was that of teacher. Whether PreK to 8, high school or teacher preparation or graduate education, I was both humbled and invigorated when in the classroom. Creativity was the magic sauce that rubbed up against the compliance of testing. My first book was about 'teaching and learning gems' collected in Canadian independent schools. I collaborated with Jackie Copp on this project. How wonderful it was to examine so many creative school cultures. Teachers seemed happy here just as they did at the International School of Brussels.

After working on the founding team for the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in Detroit, I took on a Principal, and later Executive Director role at a performing arts school in DC. This laid the foundation for the beginning of a hypothesis that proposed the idea that standardized tests and school improvement cannot co-exist. I wrote about this experience in "A Charter School Principal's Story" (Brill), which has recently been updated reflecting on charter schools ten years later. Following this experience I joined the founding team as Principal of the Middleburg Community Charter School in Virginia and when I returned to Canada, took on a lead role in creating an environmentally-focused entrepreneurial school in Collingwood, Ontario. These experiences required attention to budget details fueling book number 3: "How Much Does a Great School Cost?: School Economies and School Values." (Rowman & Littlefield) We can repurpose budgets to make schools more engaging for students.

Along the way, the force of assessment (of the standardized kind) kept creeping in and making a mess of things. As a strong supporter of 'Assessment for Learning', I understood that what happens in the classroom by teachers for students is the not the same a commercial paint-by-numbers multiple-choice test. Seeing the toxic impact of standardized assessment led me to write: "Assessment Tools and Systems" (R & L) which shared more grounded forms of classroom assessment practices that can contribute to learning. Between these books, I took on a Principal role at a school that had incredible potential as an international school. With a small staff that could speak the six official languages of the United Nations, it was such a treat to initiate a multi-lingual Model UN program and community service experiences. In the midst of this role, COVID struck, and the two years before my retirement in schools felt like five. In this time I began to read of teacher unrest and frustration. Book #5 would be "Teacher Shortages and the Challenge of Retention" (R & L). While I had been searching for ideal ways to engage students in schools, I realized that the expectations we put on teachers is beyond the reach of most, and we needed to make significant changes to nurture the profession (i.e. changes in schedules, workload, pay...).

"The Gatekeepers: Why School Systems Need to Rethink Resisting Change" (R & L) was a collaborative project featuring the works of many legends in the field, and many young leaders, not legends, yet. After writing about student engagement, budgets, assessment, teacher shortages, and my experience in charter schools, I was ready to tackle the barriers to signifiant school improvement, and feature ways for educators and others to navigate around them.

Recently, I had the pleasure of working with Hope Blecher, from New Jersey. Together we crafted: “Write to Be Read” (R & L), a practical resource to support writing in the classroom. It’s a work bursting with fresh ideas blending nicely with classroom assessment, purposefully designed to support learning.

There are two more books I'm working on in my home screen stable, but thought I share how these books were fed by experience - to hopefully inspire others to color outside the lines. Want to Get in Trouble?...Try writing about what could be happening in classrooms to make things more engaging for students and teachers. We can do this!