Lead Lit Topic: Tough Nuts
A teacher who refuses to work with her grade-level team to design new units. A principal who is always upending your schedule with new responsibilities. A literacy coach who is in tears because she feels so isolated. A participant who continually interrupts an in-service session with “Yeah but . . .”
Tough Nuts are not easily defined, but you know one when you see it. They are the challenges that sit at the center of your forehead in the dead of night, robbing you of sleep. The stories of how we’ve dealt with these ongoing and immediate challenges are here.
Results
Off the Hook: How to Engage With and Reframe Our Obstacles to Reduce Anxiety and Stress
“[W]e are all hardwired to suffer psychologically: to compare, evaluate, and criticize ourselves; to focus on what we’re lacking; to rapidly become dissatisfied with what we have; and to imagine...
The Joyful Toolkit for Literacy Leaders
A few years ago, pre-pandemic, I came across this TED Talk from Ingrid Fetell Lee. In it she describes her 10-year quest to figure out where joy comes from. The...
Examining (and Changing) Our Literacy Beliefs over Time
Our beliefs construct what we notice, which constructs what we believe. So noticing on purpose and questioning those beliefs is pure genius. —Jennifer Garvey Berger and Carolyn Coughlin, Unleash Your...
Quiet Coaching
For the last couple of months, I have been meeting periodically with a friend. He is going through a job change: transitioning to a career in land management. When he...
Ways to Make Positive Momentum Happen in Sticky Situations
A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. —Lao Tzu A newly formed...
How to Manage Our Frustrations in Difficult Times
A staff member stopped into my office with a worried look on her face. "I'm not sure you're going to want to hear this, and you don't need to do...
The Joy of Learning Something New (or How Trying Something New I Totally Stank at Helped Increase My Understanding of the Learning Process)
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment I decided I wanted to play roller derby. It could have been while growing up in the '80s and seeing the over-the-top derby...
Coaching Minute: Ask for Help
Curriculum director Inga Omondi advises leaders that the best thing for them to do is ask for help.
Getting to Know You . . . More: A Midyear Idea for Helping Kids Tune (Back) In to Each Other
Our social life is a living system, and it needs exercise . . . It’s a choice you make to invest in, week by week, year by year—one that has...
Coaching to Empower
I always have a soft spot for new teachers. I remember my own first few weeks of teaching and the dizzying reorientation of my brain with new details and nuances...
Coaching Minute: Tough Meetings
Curriculum director Inga Omondi understands the tension that can build in meetings. She offers advice for instructional coaches on what to do after a tough meeting.
Play to Your Strengths
When I taught freshman English, we had a brand-new freshman social studies teacher next door. Right away, it felt like we were total opposites. I was an introvert, and he...
Building Consensus Through Connection
Imagine: A school’s ELA committee has been tasked with creating a list of instructional agreements that will be used in each classroom to guide what is expected of literacy instruction....
Coaching Minute: Change Can Be Rewarding
Instructional coach Paula Fiscus shares the notion that change is a catalyst for growth. Although change can be difficult and challenging, it is also rewarding.
Shopping in Your Own House: Searching Our Own Teaching Practice for New Ideas
Sometimes when you’re looking for an answer, you search everywhere else before you take a look at what’s right in front of you. —Dean Hughes While I was eating in...
Feedback Is Overrated: Focus First on Building Positive, Trusting Relationships
Go to any of the major educational publishers’ websites and enter “feedback” into the search bar. You will likely get dozens or even hundreds of books and other resources about...
Five Classroom Design Ideas for Supporting Readers and Writers with ADHD
Kids do well if they can. —Ross W. Greene In the world of literacy instruction, we talk a lot about literacy but maybe not enough about instruction. Specifically, I see a...
Let’s Upskill: How to Revive and Transform Instruction to Serve Today’s Learners
Summer is a great time to think of ways to “upskill” our instruction. At the beach, on the back porch, and when walking the dog in the sunshine, we can...
How to Respond When Books and Curriculum Resources Are Challenged
In the past few months, many literacy leaders have been facing challenges from parents or community members related to classroom library books, school library books, and supplemental materials that support...
Combating Leadership Loneliness
Several years ago when the literacy coordinator position opened up in my district, I decided to apply. I had been an interventionist/coach for seven years, and although I loved the...
Slicing Up the Pie
I had just sent my email response to a parent when the phone call came in. “Are you still able to step in for Sarah’s classroom? Her students are coming...
