Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

Erin Mote is the cofounder of the Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, a community-based school organization that serves more than 1000 students. She is also the Executive Director and Co-Founder of InnovateEDU. In this episode, we'll go from the design of the charter school that Erin and her then soon-to-be-husband scratched out on the back of a cocktail napkin to a flourishing school of "scholars...

This week I talked with Daniel Bauer , podcast host, author, mastermind facilitator, and coach. He has defined the art of growing leadership talent that seeks to change education to better serve 21st century students. He grows "Ruckus Makers." As successful as he is, he's as susceptible to self-doubt and the voice of his inner critic – his imposter syndrome – as the rest of us. The imposter syndro...

We've been running a series called "Unstuck," which focuses on school leaders who are not just getting unstuck, they're already "unstuck." And by "Unstuck," we mean they are leading or embracing a major shift in student learning, instruction, ongoing teacher professional development, community relations, or personal leadership. Whiles he's not technically a leader inside a school anymore, Daniel B...

This week I talked with Dr. Daisy Morales , the new Superintendent of the Live Oak School District in Santa Cruz, CA. Daisy's big concern coming into the district on Day 1 wasn't rectifying the "lost learning" associated with managing classrooms in a virtual or hybrid environment. Her primary concern coming out of a year of COVID was with the wellness of her faculty and staff. So, we stay with wel...

Dr. Daisy Morales is the new Superintendent of the Live Oak School District in Santa Cruz, CA. Like other smart, experienced leaders, Dr. Morales didn't come into the district with her guns of change blazing. Instead, she began a series of one-on-one and group listening meetings to determine the priority for the year. Not priorities, but priority. And what she discovered is that the worlds of inst...

This week I talked with Connie Liu and Jordan Mareno of "Project Invent," an organization that brings innovation, design thinking, and community problem solving into the classroom. "Project Invent" is all about helping students maintain their curiosity and sense of discovery — what a ZEN master would call their "beginner's mind." This approach isn't just a nice to have. Today's organizations opera...

Teaching kids 21st century skills is not new news. Fortunately, most school systems have instruction in place that addresses the 4Cs or variations of them along with life & career skills and media skills. How schools develop the skills, however, does vary. Do you teach these skills in discrete lessons? Or do you weave them seamlessly into project-based experiences? In this episode, Connie Liu and...

This week we talked with Sunny Summers , the Founding School Leader of New Harmony High School in New Orleans. Our conversation centered on how one goes about designing a new school, especially one that is place-based around the local ecosystem. That approach is unique, but what really defines New Harmony is its people – its faculty and students. And people is where we go with this week's mini-fea...

This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series. By "Unstuck," we mean our guest is leading or embracing a major shift in student learning, instruction, ongoing teacher professional development, community relations, or personal leadership. This week talked with Sunny Summers , Executive Director of New Harmony High in New Orleans. New Harmony High rewrote the book on place-based learning because ev...

This week we spoke with K12 social studies educator, Casey Jakubowski, Ph. D. . Our conversation dove into the debate about the purpose of teaching U.S. History. Is it about instilling patriotism, examining the promise of America versus its practices, or teaching critical life skills? A mixture? Teaching skills is where we go with this week's "Worth a Listen, Look or Read." We make the case that h...

The teaching of U.S. history and civics is in the news a lot these days. We're seeing controversy and divisiveness around the approach we should take with our students. Stress what's good about the U.S. and where we're making progress toward meeting our goals? Focus on where the promise is not yet being met? The discussions are leaving many teachers in pedagogical limbo. And students may be denied...

This week we spoke with Principal Michelle Pinchot who was asked to turn around a low-performing school. Rather than jump in immediately with a bunch of 'solutions," Michelle started asking a lot of questions and listening. And listening is where we go with this week's "Worth a Listen, Look or Read." We'll watch a TED Talk to learn about 5 strategies we can use to improve our listening. And then w...

This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series. By "Unstuck," we mean our guest is leading or embracing a major shift in student learning, instruction, ongoing teacher professional development, community relations, or personal leadership. This week we talked with Michelle Pinchot , Principal of the Heritage Computer Academy in Garden Grove, CA. Her challenge? How do you improve a low-performing sc...

In this week's podcast, we talked with Mike Matsuda , Superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District. Mike's focus has been to build a three-part framework that brings greater alignment between what happens in the classroom and the world of work. One of those elements speaks to developing student voice. We dug into that idea by watching a video that features a graduation speech given by...

This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series. By "Unstuck," we mean our guest is leading or embracing a major shift in student learning, instruction, ongoing teacher professional development, community relations, or personal leadership. In this episode, we talk with Superintendent Mike Matsuda around his singular vision — to bring better alignment between what students are doing in the classroom...

This week we chatted with Yasmeen Robbins , an Instructional Review Consultant for the North Carolina Department of Instruction. Her role takes her from one end of the state to the other where she engages with many administrators. And she hears from many of them how isolating the work can be. So, like the great change agent that she is, Yasmeen decided to do something to alleviate some of their is...

This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series, which focuses on school leaders who are not just getting unstuck, they're already "unstuck." And by "Unstuck," we mean they are supporting a major shift in education that will increase the potential for administrators and teachers to achieve desired outcomes. Yasmeen Robbins has spent 16 years in public education, most recently as an Instructional Co...

This week we chatted with an Assistant Superintendent of the Mesa Arizona Public Schools, Dr. Randy Mahlerwein . Randy believes that educators need to create different types of learners with a different skill set from what they have typically produced in the past. Doing so is imperative if they're going to create learners who can thrive in the evolving world of work. To help educators navigate suc...

If school leaders want staff to feel comfortable designing and initiating changes to benefit students, they have to create a culture of psychological safety for experimentation – and failure. Dr. Randy Mahlerwein , the Assistant Superintendent over Secondary Schools in the Mesa Public Schools explains how to do just that.

This week on "Getting Unstuck," we chatted with Principal "Missie" Patschke on the need to build leadership capacity with all staff. The necessity of building the capacity of others to lead is not a new idea. It's not universally practiced, though, because leaders typically get stuck trying to build capacity in one of three ways. We'll investigate a way to break free of those barriers in this week...

In this conversation, we hear from elementary school principal Dr. Melissa "Missie" Patschke , a leader who instinctively gets how you build capacity in others. This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series, which focuses on school leaders who are not just getting unstuck, they're already "unstuck." They're doing things better, not just differently, not just as part of the most recent trend, but...

This week we chatted with Assistant Superintendent Constantino "Costa" Aquilar regarding his district's now six-year shift to broaden its students' post high school opportunities. The district's shift is remarkable not only for its scope, but also because of the extensive communication that fosters it. We dug deeper into that idea of communication by looking at an ongoing process of adaptation and...

In this interview, "Costa" Aguilar , Assistant Superintendent of the Merced Union High School District details the shift his district started six years ago. This interview is part of our "Unstuck" series, which focuses on school leaders who are not just getting unstuck, they're already "unstuck." They're doing things better, not just differently, not just as part of the most recent trend, but beca...

This week we enjoyed getting an update from Principal JoAnne Duncan . JoAnne first appeared on our show last October. She impressed us with how she tried to simplify her staff's approach to managing COVID by keeping them focused on what they could control. We extended the idea of simple through the work of Carl Richards , a certified financial planner. Richards has a knack for recasting complex id...

We aired our first interview with Principal JoAnne Duncan in October 2020. With that challenge staring this young principal in the face, we focused our conversation on leadership. If her leadership could be boiled down to one word, it would have to be "caring." With the challenging year of COVID somewhat in the rearview mirror, we caught up with JoAnne and asked her to reflect on what guided her t...