[Source: This slide was presented by University of Alberta professor Cathy Blackstock at the 2014 conference of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. It compares and contrasts Western and First Nations perspectives.] For the last few months, I’ve been wincing a bit every time I see a reference to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or [...]
A few days ago, I tweeted the following: We cannot traumatize people by jumping into business-as-usual as schools reopen. We MUST create space for healing, reflection, & metabolizing the pain of the moment we are in. Set the task list aside and create space for affinity groups, deep listening, and restorative practices. Within hours, hundreds [...]
Last Sunday, I attended a 15-minute virtual church service with author Brené Brown. I was not raised with any religion per se, having come from both Catholic and Jewish traditions, and I sometimes vacillate between faith and agnosticism. But in the first days of “shelter-in-place”—the executive order issued by Governor Gavin Newsom in California—I felt [...]
Greetings community! It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, mostly because I’ve been engrossed in writing the proposal for my second book. This next project will dig into the concept of street data (which made a cameo in Book 1) and its connection to educational equity. I am thrilled to be collaborating with [...]
I just got back from chilly Minneapolis, where I delivered a keynote to over 200 superintendents on "Listening and Leading for Equity." I escaped the Midwest just before a storm moved in that would have trapped me! In the keynote, I spoke about three levers that I believe make a big difference in schools: deep [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot about my journey as a reader and, specifically, my journey to become a critical reader of complex text. According to Jennifer Duncan at the University of Toronto, "Critical reading is a more active way of reading. It is a deeper and more complex engagement with a text. Critical reading is [...]
This summer, my family and I went on a tandem biking expedition in Connemara, a rugged area in County Galway, Ireland from which part of my lineage traces. We rode 20-30 miles a day in a rare Irish heatwave, through rolling green hills and endless pastures of sheep, with nary a car in sight. By [...]
Math teacher/teacher leader Demian Martens reimagines the equity landscape of his school through our arts integration experience. Our first open-call Brave Spaces Institute last week was a wonderful and humbling experience. We brought together teams from across California and as far as Minneapolis for a deep exploration of what it means to be [...]
Teacher strikes erupting in five states have got me all verklempt (Yiddish for too emotional to speak). I’m a career educator and married to an Oakland high school teacher. While I’m not currently in the classroom, teaching and learning remain my core passion and my professional “why”. And this I know for certain: high-quality instruction [...]
In my work with schools and districts, I hear a lot of talk about the need for leaders to “have a vision.” Central office folks often decry the absence of vision among principals they support, and teachers clamor for a “leader with vision.” But what does this really mean? What is the purpose of creating [...]
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