Recently, I have been in spaces where people have asked me about my weekly writing and how I maintain a blog while juggling so many other responsibilities. The answer is actually pretty simple. Learning is important to me.Growing is important to me.Thinking is important to me.Writing to think through ideas is important to me. Going …
Continue reading What Kind of Thinking Are We Making Room For?
If you have come to this space to read my writing before, you may already know that my writing process is shaped by the ideas I encounter in books and articles, hear in podcasts, and gather through interactions across my personal and professional life. I have developed a habit of writing down the quotes that …
Continue reading Five Quotes I Keep Returning To and What They Can Mean for Education
I have a routine…Every morning, I read a few pages from a book to spark my thinking and frame my day. Recently, I returned to The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest and paused at this line: “Comfort becomes a vice when what’s familiar becomes the only thing that feels possible.” As a district leader planning …
This week, I read my friend Meghan Lawson’s blog, “A Note About First Days.” Her reflection on the importance of intentionally designing a meaningful first day and her mention of The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath reminded me of how much that book has influenced the way I think about learning, …
This week, I struggled to write. I tried to find inspiration in the usual places. A book. A podcast. An experience. A moment from the week that would spark something. Usually, that works like a charm. I listen to a podcast, read a few pages from a book, think about something that happened in a …
Continue reading I See That You’re Trying: What Writer’s Block Reminded Me About Learning
A couple of weeks ago, I rushed into a local retail store because I needed an outfit for an event that evening. I glanced at my watch as I walked through the door. It was 6:30 p.m. The store closed at 7:00 p.m. Plenty of time, I thought. Within ten minutes, I had found an …
Last week, I wrote a retirement speech for a special person. When I sat down to write it, it wasn’t hard. The words flowed straight from my heart and onto the page. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that when you are writing about people who have made you better, people …
This is my 20th year in education, and before I stepped into my first leadership role, I kept returning to a question that I share in my book The Leader Inside: "Lauren, what type of leader do you want to be?" My answer was simple: "The type of leader I always needed." When I think …
Continue reading Turning Classroom Observation into Dynamic Hubs Where Learning Comes Alive
My husband has been coaching our boys in sports for years. He loves baseball. He loved it as a child, played Little League and throughout high school. Like many kids growing up in New York, he idolized Don Mattingly and spent countless hours watching the Yankees. But perhaps what shaped him most wasn’t what happened …
For much of my time as a student, learning often felt like the consumption of information. Read the chapter. Listen to the lesson. Take notes. Study for the test. Repeat. Can you relate? To be clear, knowledge matters. Learners need background knowledge. They need vocabulary. They need the foundational literacy skills of reading, writing, speaking, …
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