tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41625877187823373082011-10-10T08:16:23.085-04:00About professional culture and professional development in independent schools. For those who recruit, hire, train, and supervise, as well as for those who teach.Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.comBlogger401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-82791289144988722432010-08-06T13:11:00.008-04:002011-01-06T18:02:23.458-05:00

This will be the final post here; I am working toward moving my evolving spiel to a new venue, "Not Your Father's School." My hope is to unify some of my thinking, which has been split between this blog and "The New Progressive." Part of my desire is to lose the specific focus on teaching and professional culture here and what I am feeling are my overly restrictive ties to what I have been

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-16442119819747164492010-05-05T13:02:00.005-04:002010-05-05T13:53:55.396-04:00

I recently spoke with some independent school folks in Maryland on the topic of change and innovation. Along the way to putting my thoughts into words, I had a couple of ideas that might be useful for people in schools wanting to but mired down in the challenges of change.As educators and especially as change agents within schools, we sometimes neglect or regard as an insurmountable obstacle the

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-33261128062196920602010-03-21T12:54:00.004-04:002010-03-21T20:38:16.405-04:00

Of necessity I have been thinking quite a lot about branding and independent schools lately, and I am hereby decreeing that the most enduring tagline ever created about our schools is that attributed to the Duke of Wellington: “The Battle of Waterloo was won upon the playing fields of Eton.”The line has a suspect provenance, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is the way in which the

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-82587699368132432662010-03-15T08:06:00.013-04:002010-03-15T20:05:39.939-04:00

Sitting in the waiting area as my car gets its oil changed, I had occasion just now to hear a CNN news clip in which Secretary of Arne Duncan vigorously supports the firing of the faculty of the "failing" high school in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and responds to the questioning of the interviewer about teaching students who have little or no support at home by saying, "If you can't teach poor

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-82038360466624617232010-02-24T22:08:00.004-05:002010-02-24T23:23:57.448-05:00

It'll take me a while to collect all my thoughts on the "Leading Toward A Sustainable Future" workshop this afternoon at the NAIS 2010 Annual Conference. I led off with some collective wisdom on school leadership that I amassed for the "Alive & Well" online advisory, then Pat Bassett spoke in detail on financial modeling and how schools need to prepare to face "The New Normal" of limited

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-1909805318847388762010-02-20T15:19:00.004-05:002010-02-20T15:40:52.583-05:00

Just a quick update:The Intentional Teacher: Forging a Great Career in the Independent School Classroom is now proudly displayed for order on the website of the publisher, Avocus Publishing. I understand that the book will also be available at the NAIS Bookstore at the 2010 Annual Conference, which starts in just a couple of days.I've also distilled some of aspects of the book into a 1-hour

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-89743277216768413642010-02-19T21:22:00.005-05:002010-02-19T22:43:25.396-05:00

While a part of a pretty interesting panel discussion on "The Future of Teaching" at the EdSocialMedia Summit the other day I made the mistake of suggesting that teachers in the 21st century might need to be smart about content, along with other things like mind-brain-education science, child development, and curriculum and assessment design (along with technology tools, of course).A fellow

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-40939434232975027022010-02-09T10:02:00.004-05:002010-02-09T15:02:59.212-05:00

For the past couple of months we've spent some faculty meeting time on the question of "comment forms." For those unfamiliar with this interesting little cultural wrinkle in American independent schools, "comments" (some schools say "reports," and there are probably other local usages with which I'm not familiar) are regularly scheduled narrative reports on student performance that usually

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-68304892502631327902010-02-04T15:58:00.004-05:002010-02-04T16:23:42.823-05:00

The word has come to us via the NAIS February E-Bulletin that David Mallery has left us. As with the loss of Ted Sizer, I am shaken.Anyone who ever met David or who attended any of his extraordinary programs for teachers and administrators automatically moved into the category of "Friend of David." His uncanny ability to remember and place faces and names is legendary, but I believe this stemmed

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-13672807254315196532010-02-02T13:24:00.004-05:002010-02-02T16:17:49.708-05:00

Arguably the most interesting and compelling article on leadership and management that I've encountered in the past few years is "What Makes Leaders Succeed" in the November 2009 Korn/Ferry Briefings. Essentially a summary of a longer scholarly schedule to appear in a future issue of Leadership Quarterly, the article lays out the results of research into the effectiveness of certain kinds of

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-25716765082897364692009-11-06T08:31:00.003-05:002009-11-06T08:37:32.755-05:00

(I apologize to readers of the New Progressive blog for the more-or-less duplicate postings.)Shameless self-promotion, but I guess that's okay here:The Intentional Teacher: Forging a Great Career in the Independent School Classroom is at last available. Although the book can be ordered by phone directly from the publisher, Avocus Publishing (800-345-6665; their website is undergoing renovation),

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-18725419811410741732009-11-04T16:40:00.004-05:002009-11-05T14:03:00.667-05:00

Like Charlie Brown's sister Sally in the musical, I am developing a new philosophy about change issues. Having recently done yet another survey of the field involving schools that have embarked on "21st-century learning" initiatives, I wonder whether it it might be time for schools to revise some of their strategies for program change.I'm not talking about slowing down, or scrapping the work. I'm

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-21699470569406698982009-08-24T08:14:00.006-04:002009-08-24T11:17:05.271-04:00

Well, school's not quite ready to start, but I am, and after a tragically long lay-off from this blog it's time to start thinking about how schools can build faculty competencies and do a better job at that thing we are supposed to do. Our new faculty just completed the new-and-improved 3-day Teaching All Kinds of Minds program to hone their differentiation chops, and this afternoon the big work

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-91479986944694252912009-05-25T11:31:00.006-04:002009-05-25T12:01:25.254-04:00

It's been a crazy month once again, settling our seniors into their college choices, going through the final edits of The Intentional Teacher: Forging a Great Career in the Independent School Classroom--scheduled for publication some time this summer--and continuing work on the NAIS Financial Sustainability series monographs. (Reminder: If you work at an NAIS member school you can create a member

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-90849286684268595612009-04-15T16:43:00.006-04:002009-04-15T17:17:50.523-04:00

For much of the last few months my "unassigned time"--time not spent working or driving kids around--has been devoted to writing a series of small articles and recording podcasts on financial sustainability issues for independent school leaders. Having covered the ground so far from development to innovation, I have spoken with a number of very thoughtful and knowledgeable people. What I have

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-6609043060034278612009-03-07T10:13:00.005-05:002009-03-07T10:39:33.226-05:00

In 1920 Eugene Randolph Smith, head of the Park School of Baltimore, was invited to tell a group of Boston parents about the latest in educational thinking and practice. The parents immediately decided to hire Smith away from Baltimore to build a new school in Boston.During his 23 years as head of Beaver Country Day School, Smith regularly posted challenging queries and statements for his faculty

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-1546762956242004802009-03-01T10:12:00.003-05:002009-03-01T11:12:13.970-05:00

The day of reckoning grows closer, and independent school people are growing ever more anxious. Even where admissions signs point to full enrollments and where annual giving hasn't diminished, the question of what things will look like in April, June, and September gnaws away at administrators and classroom teachers alike. Will there be enough students to fill the school and ensure full

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-2807885923136988432009-02-22T10:15:00.004-05:002009-02-22T11:14:51.229-05:00

These are frightening times in many independent schools, and many of us are in a period of uncertainty that will only end when re-enrollment and admissions yield numbers are posted in April. In some parts of the country the mood is particularly grim, and schools are preparing to make cuts in staff and programs as they scale back in the face of drooping demand. In every school, administrators are

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-33187899200464762442009-02-05T16:03:00.005-05:002009-02-05T21:21:05.309-05:00

I've been a slacker in blogland for a while, but I will plead the usual busy-ness: kickoff to our juniors' college search-apply-choose process, a few days at another school talking about schedule, and a slew of writing for the National Association of Independent Schools on issues managerial and financial. I've got a breather before the next onslaught, which includes arthroscopic knee surgery (so

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-40565451266693697302009-01-14T15:59:00.005-05:002009-01-14T18:42:41.419-05:00

In uncertain economic times the quality of a school's faculty matters more than ever, and the conditions of 2009 should occasion that smartest, most intentional hiring season ever. Whether the school is looking for one teacher or many, thoughtful recruiting--based on the hiring self-study recommended in a previous post as well as on the specific need--will increase the probability of bringing in

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-3775368273548304582009-01-08T08:30:00.007-05:002009-01-08T10:14:40.159-05:00

What seems like a long month ago a piece by Malcolm Gladwell appeared in the New Yorker under the title "Most Likely to Succeed." As is usual for Gladwell's work, the piece is briliantly written, creatively constructed, and provocative; he loves being the gadfly. In this case, the conventional wisdom he is questioning has to do with teacher hiring, curiously mirrored against the process pro

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-85180602362592571282008-12-27T14:19:00.007-05:002008-12-27T15:03:53.585-05:00

The hiring season is about to begin, and there is no better time than the first weeks after the holiday break is over for schools to undertake what I call the "hiring self-study." This is a chance for the principal actors in the school's hiring process to sit down and do a bit of big-picture pre-reflection on the season to come. Rather than concentrating on the individual positions to be filled,

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-64097760924992458042008-12-22T14:15:00.005-05:002008-12-22T14:29:42.656-05:00

If lack of training and lack of engagement with or understanding of the mission are at the center of administrative frustration with department heads, it must also be acknowledged that classroom teachers report a range of their own frustrations with their middle management “leaders.” Departments may or not be collegial environments, meetings may or may not be productive and enjoyable times, and

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-36067445173225434622008-12-11T15:22:00.005-05:002008-12-11T15:32:08.084-05:00

Wherever academic deans, division heads, assistant heads, and other academic administrators gather, one theme of private discussion is likely to be frustration with department heads. Department chairs, it seems, are everywhere bodies of resistant, petty, disinterested so-called leaders who are in fact unwilling to lead and seemingly immune to anything like new ideas and lofty concepts of

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-64940141828531617292008-11-30T14:28:00.005-05:002008-11-30T16:08:10.135-05:00

In my previous post I suggested that a part of teachers' notorious reluctance to embrace change in their schools and in their practice comes from having experienced a surfeit of "new ideas" and initiatives that have meant a great deal of professional sound and fury--workshops, seminars, committees, planning sessions, new lingo, new gadgets--but that have in the end signified little in terms of

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-30195788738133245992008-11-22T21:07:00.008-05:002008-11-23T13:34:09.748-05:00

Wherever people who see themselves as innovators or who are indeed designated agents of change gather, there's always talk of how resistant teachers are to change. Whether they are tech people charged with bringing a school full of teachers into the next, or rather the current, millennium, or whether they are administrators filled with the zeal of curriculum or assessment reform, the chatter--

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-13343622587609630872008-11-16T15:32:00.005-05:002008-11-16T17:29:04.991-05:00

Periodically one or another of the independent school teaching listservs and networks will light up with queries about job descriptions. Sometimes these are quite specific; someone at a school will want to know about the title and responsibilities of his or her counterparts at other schools. Occasionally the queries are about structure, accountability, and reporting status.About once a year,

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-48018526219065588032008-11-08T13:15:00.007-05:002008-11-09T21:41:43.381-05:00

Whenever I chat about my work with other school folks, particularly those having anything to with the college search-apply-choose process, I'm afraid that I rather smugly mention that I work in a school where families generally aren't crazy and where they already get the idea of a school matching their kids' needs; therefore, the large part of my role that involves college is not much fraught

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-18393007261455526602008-10-29T20:42:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:10:08.098-05:00

Met today with the Man Who Knows, and the subject of professional development for independent school teachers came up.The man is Patrick Bassett, executive director of the National Association of Independent Schools, and we got to talking about the roles that regional associations can play in providing a higher level than present (in many areas) of ongoing professional training for teachers.

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-48898992017304394262008-10-24T18:03:00.005-04:002008-11-02T21:11:41.940-05:00

Things are getting rugged, and change is in the wind.But a few things are becoming more clear for educators. One obvious fact is that the diversity train has left the station in our society. No matter who becomes the next president, some things in our country and on our continent are changing, and those of us who teach kids had better be ready. I keep hearing predictions as to when "Whites in the

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-61338751643193630132008-10-20T20:58:00.005-04:002008-11-02T21:12:39.294-05:00

My Canadian sojourn was interesting in all kinds of ways, from some very interesting conversations with Canadian independent school educators (including a couple of American expats now leading great Canadian schools) to the New Brunswick Museum in St. John to the flight home via Montreal over a gorgeous landscape striated by the glaciers and upholstered in green, orange, and red damask foliage. I

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-47623653920691753812008-10-17T15:45:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:13:48.012-05:00

I’m writing this from Canada, where I will be speaking at the Canadian Association of Independent Schools conference for school heads on the subject of “Building Faculties.” It’s hard not to have been distracted by financial turmoil as I have been putting my presentation together, with grim scenarios of hiring and salary freezes or worse spinning through my head. It’s pretty certain that we’ll

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-15099012147021984712008-10-13T09:03:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:14:39.133-05:00

It's been a few too many days since last I posted here, and in the meantime the economic news has gone from bad to worse to worse still; one presumes that sooner or later we'll hit rock bottom so that we can all begin to figure out how we will be living over the next few years.One large probability is that independent schools will be hit hard by tough times. The New York Times is already writing

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-6719011074072927642008-10-04T11:38:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:15:59.615-05:00

On my other blog I was just writing about classroom standards, but there is another set of standards that we've heard both more and less about. The media and the politicians are all in a sweat about "higher standards for teachers," but relatively few schools have gone out of their way to state what these standards are.In independent schools there has long been a prideful sense that we know good

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-35821893383374335222008-09-30T14:15:00.005-04:002008-11-02T21:16:41.453-05:00

It's time for parent conferences, parent evenings, back-to-school nights, and all the rich variety of ways that schools devise to bring families into schools to build important connections and begin essential conversations (as Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has so aptly called them) between teachers and parent/guardians.As much as anything, parents and guardians want to be reassured that their children

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-76727516628052267722008-09-27T14:43:00.007-04:002008-11-02T21:17:39.641-05:00

There was some talk on one of the educator listservs this past week about technology and teachers. We've fussed for a decade or more about "technology competency standards" for teachers, with early adopters holding up the highest standards and the rest of the profession wondering a bit anxiously about where it will all go. At times I've been glad that the technology sluggards I know have not

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-39002973190081562872008-09-23T21:33:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:18:24.986-05:00

I just finished writing up a precis of my check-in conversations with all our new faculty, and I am giving ourselves a big pat on the back not only for a program that has so far kept these good people free from huge surprises but also for having done two things pretty thoughtfully and, it appears, well.The first is hiring. Our main thrust for many years has been to find people who are really well

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-47892930995314721092008-09-20T08:27:00.007-04:002008-11-02T21:19:09.194-05:00

I have had a couple of conversations with teachers lately about nightmares--those anxiety dreams that many teachers seem to experience around the beginning of the school year. Underdressed, underequipped, and certainly underprepared, the dreamer finds himself or herself "on" in a situation, often but not always school-like, from which there is no escape and in which the audience can deliver

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-44457168231899776752008-09-18T06:43:00.006-04:002008-11-02T21:20:56.205-05:00

Welcome!Admirable faculties are the engines that power great schools. More than a group of fine teachers, the very best faculties share a both culture and a fundamental belief in their students and their schools' missions and values.Drawing on the ideas presented in An Admirable Faculty: Recruiting, Hiring, Training and Retaining the Best Independent School Teachers (NAIS, 2005) , this blog will

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4162587718782337308.post-2520371037521253652008-09-18T06:43:00.005-04:002008-11-02T21:20:04.652-05:00

By now new teachers are in at least in the second weeks of school, and we like to think that they are settling in comfortably.Experience, however, suggests that many are still in something resembling panic mode: student work is piling up, conferences and parent/guardian events are looming, and they are holding onto their curricula by the skin of their chattering teeth. Each day brings its little

Peter Gowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602866242146968481noreply@blogger.com1