Adventures in Administration

This week's # EduBlogger Club prompt is all about pictures.  I love this prompt because I spend a lot of time finding images to match my posts. I find that the posts I personally enjoy reading are the ones that include good images.  I also know from lots of reading, attending conferences, time in classrooms, and leading PD, that images are much more powerful than words. So I have spent much of the past week noticing images and thinking about how I use images as well as how I can better use them in the future.  Image from one of our (previously NOT upgraded) classrooms I enjoy using images and have actively worked to improve my use of them over the last few years. For example, part of my job as an administrator is to justify projects to our Board.  We educators know that there is never enough money in the "pie" to go around so I take my job very seriously when it comes to lobbying for funds for our teachers. For some requests, images can definitely help strength...

Photo Credit I have been reading a book lent to me by a former student (I know, right? How cool is that?) that was written by a friend of hers.  (Also major cool factor!)  This is a book that with every chapter I am left thinking about something and questioning the "tried and true" practices of education. So we come to the genesis of this post. As I was reading   The Art of Self Directed Learning  by Blake Boles , my brain came to a screeching halt with chapter 4: Consensual Learning.  The underlying premise of this chapter is that school ≠  choice.  This was like a lightening flash for me.  As I began to really reflect on this thesis, I realized that it was true.  I also realized that it needs to change.  Here is why: In school, our job is to prepare our students for life.  Knowing how to make healthy, appropriate choices is a crucial skill to life-time success.  We can not effectively prepare students for life if...