Season 2, Episode 5 of FocusED with Vernita Mayfield

Season 2, Episode 5 of FocusED with Vernita Mayfield

by | Sep 27, 2021 | #FocusED, Action, Communication, Core Values, Culture, Daily Habits, Decision-Making, Education, Energy, Engagement, Excellence, Focus, Fulfillment, Goal Setting, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Listening, Mental Mapping, Motivation, Motivation & Retention, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Positivity, Principal Leadership, Principals, Professional Dialogue, Relationships, Resilience, Results, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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Becoming a Culturally Competent School Leader with FocusED Guest Vernita Mayfield 

This is Season 2, Episode 5 of FocusED, and it features guest, Vernita Mayfield. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience for Delaware teachers and leaders. Don’t miss what Vernita says about confronting racism in schools and so much more.  

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Vernita Mayfield Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Vernita Mayfield hails originally from Los Angeles, California, where she began her career teaching elementary school. As a teacher, Mayfield found her first love serving and supporting students who have been historically marginalized. Since then, she has continued to do so through numerous positions of service, including secondary school principal, researcher and lecturer, and educational consultant at state and national levels.  

In 2012, she founded Leadervation Learning to support organizations seeking to build leadership capacity, particularly in marginalized communities. The company evolved into a vehicle supporting leaders at all levels to understand and dismantle inequitable systems and organizations by building the cultural competency of staff. 

Don’t forget to pick up a copy of her book: Cultural Competence Now: 56 Exercises to Help Educators Understand and Challenge Bias, Racism, and Privilege. 

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FocusED is an Educational Leadership Podcast

Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ dereka206.sg-host.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district with more knowledge, better understanding, and clear direction on what to do next. 

This episode was brought to you by GhostBed, a family-owned business of sleep experts with 20+ years of experience. With 30K+ 5-star reviews, you can’t go wrong with GhostBed. Their mattresses are handcrafted, and they come with a 101-night-at-home-sleep trial. For a limited time, you can get 30% by using our code — SH302 — at checkout. And, even if you tell someone about GhostBed, you can earn a $100 referral reward. Go to Ghostbed.com today and use SH302 at checkout. 

Two Books On Social & Emotional Learning That Are Bound To Make An Impact On Your School

Two Books On Social & Emotional Learning That Are Bound To Make An Impact On Your School

by | Sep 19, 2021 | #readthisseries, #SH302, Communication, Core Values, Courage, Creativity, Culture, Daily Habits, Decision-Making, District Office Leadership, Education, Excellence, Feedback, Focus, Goal Setting, Innovation, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Long-Term Decision-Making, Meeting Management, Motivation & Retention, Networking, Organizational Growth, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Positivity, Principal Leadership, Principals, Professional Dialogue, Relationships, Resilience, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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As school doors open this year to welcome back students, successful schools recognize that if they want to reach and teach all students, they need to touch their hearts and their minds. Amid the dual pandemics–Covid19 and the social and civic unrest–students are entering the school year with a host of needs that must be addressed to ensure that they are successful. 

These needs cover the spectrum from a deficit in mathematics to a family hardship. Regardless, in the end, we know that student achievement improves when students feel connected and safe, when relationships flourish in the classroom. There is no substitute for a student having a meaningful connection with a teacher, counselor, paraprofessional, administrator, or other educator at school.

Our blog this month focused on 6 different ways to build SEL in schools, and we hope you found them easy to implement. As educational leaders, we realize that one of the best places to start your learning is by reading great books, which is why we curate our lists of books to help you on your path to leading better and growing faster. 

This month, we recommend two books that we believe can make a difference where it matters the most—in the classroom. The first book is The Formative Five by Thomas Hoerr and the second one is Improve Every Lesson with SEL by Jeffrey Benson.

Featured Author: Thomas Hoerr

Featured Book: The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs

The Formative Five focuses on developing empathy, self-control, integrity, embracing diversity, and grit . Each one of the five serves our students (and teachers) well as they strive to deepen their understanding and execution in each area. The five also have a unique way of focusing on the self and others. We found this to be practical for all educators. 

Focusing on others, having empathy, is something that we can all improve upon, and as we seek to understand others, we often learn quite a bit about ourselves. Lastly, Heorr recommends other reads throughout the chapters, which is a great springboard to other books that may be valuable. Don’t miss our interview with Thomas Hoerr. You can find it on our site at dereka206.sg-host.com by clicking on the podcast button at the top. 

Key Feature of the Book:

Hoerr created self-assessment surveys for each of the formative five. We appreciate this style of writing that is designed to engage the reader, especially because these are areas that we can continually develop as leaders.

Featured Author: Jeffrey Benson

Featured Book: Improving Every Lesson Plan with SEL

Improving Every Lesson Plan with SEL demystifies the process of weaving social and emotional learning into your lessons. That last thing we want is for SEL activities to be taught in isolation or devoid of the classroom content. The more SEL can find a home within each lesson, the more students will understand the dynamic nature of so many of the topics we discuss. Consider Hurricane Ida that just devastated areas of the east coast, it’s important to know what a hurricane is, the various categories for example, but tying that to the human side of destruction and loss can teach empathy along with the content. 

Key Feature of the Book:

Similar to Hoerr, Benson explicitly outlines specific action steps that are aligned to the content in the book. He also asks the reader to reflect on their lesson plans through what they are learning about how social and emotional learning works for students. 

 

Let us know what you’re reading by contacting us at [email protected]. And don’t miss our next live event on this topic. Register here. 

 

We can’t wait to hear from you. 

 

Joe & T.J.

 

This episode of our ReadThisSeries was brought to you by GhostBed, a family-owned business of sleep experts with 20+ years of experience. With 30K+ 5-star reviews, you can’t go wrong with GhostBed. Their mattresses are handcrafted, and they come with a 101-night-at-home-sleep trial. For a limited time, you can get 30% by using our code — SH302 — at checkout. And, even if you tell someone about GhostBed, you can earn a $100 referral reward. Go to Ghostbed.com today and use SH302 at checkout. 

What You Should Know About Building A Social Emotional Learning Culture from Thomas Hoerr

What You Should Know About Building A Social Emotional Learning Culture from Thomas Hoerr

by | Sep 12, 2021 | #onethingseries, Communication, Core Values, Courage, Culture, Disruption, Engagement, Feedback, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Listening, Long-Term Decision-Making, Motivation, Motivation & Retention, Organizational Growth, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Podcast, Principal Leadership, Principals, Resilience, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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Who Is Thomas Hoerr?

Thomas R. Hoerr retired after leading the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri for 34 years and is now the Emeritus Head of School. He is currently a Scholar In Residence at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and he teaches in the Educational Leadership program, preparing prospective principals. He also led the ISACS New Heads Network and founded the Non-Profit Management Program at Washington University in St. Louis. Hoerr has written five books, and his newest book is Taking Social Emotional Learning Schoolwide: The Formative Five Success Skills for Students and Staff. He has written more than 150 articles, including “The Principal Connection” column in Educational Leadership Magazine from 2004 to 2017.

Major Takeaways from Our Interview with Thomas Hoerr:

Tom wastes no time in this interview by quickly acknowledging that academics in the school set the floor not the ceiling. His insight about David Shield’s moral and character development versus content learned uncovers the power in what schools can be.

His advice for administrators right now: “grab a cup of coffee and take a deep breath.” His next bit of advice, totally focuses on developing the SEL culture that every school needs. 

He discusses how language is key and how simply changing the name of faculty meetings to “learning meetings” sets a different expectation for staff.

Tom talks about the Formative Five and how you should not attempt all five at once. 

You don’t want to miss what he says about the power of halls and walls. 

Tom continues to learn and grow and finds incredible value in Howard Gardner, and his new book is A Synthesizing Mind. 

His pursuit to seek differing views to broaden his own understanding is profound. He shares sage advice: listen more than you talk and ask more than you tell. 

In an ever-changing and diverse world, Tom humbly admits that he really works to understand people from a diverse background. 

Tom used to think that knowledge and being smart were critical to success but now he realizes that compassion, empathy, and SEL are the gate to real knowledge and understanding.  

Let us know what you’re reading and who else you want us to bring on the show by contacting us at [email protected]. 

We can’t wait to hear from you. 

Joe & T.J. 

This episode was brought to you by GhostBed, a family-owned business of sleep experts with 20+ years of experience. With 30K+ 5-star reviews, you can’t go wrong with GhostBed. Their mattresses are handcrafted, and they come with a 101-night-at-home-sleep trial. For a limited time, you can get 30% by using our code — SH302 — at checkout. And, even if you tell someone about GhostBed, you can earn a $100 referral reward. Go to Ghostbed.com today and use SH302 at checkout. 

Season 2, Episode 4 of FocusED with Evan Robb #FocusED

Season 2, Episode 4 of FocusED with Evan Robb #FocusED

by | Sep 3, 2021 | #FocusED, Action, Communication, Core Values, Culture, Daily Habits, Decision-Making, Education, Energy, Engagement, Excellence, Focus, Fulfillment, Goal Setting, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Listening, Mental Mapping, Motivation, Motivation & Retention, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Positivity, Principal Leadership, Principals, Professional Dialogue, Relationships, Resilience, Results, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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The Ten-Minute Principal with FocusED Guest Evan Robb 

This is Season 2, Episode 4 of FocusED, and it features guest Evan Robb. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience for Delaware teachers and leaders. Don’t miss what Evan says about his 6 Pillars of Leadership, self-reflection, figuring out what you believe in, taking control of how you use time in your day, and much much more.  

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Evan Robb Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Evan Robb is the Principal of Johnson-Williams Middle School in Berryville, Virginia. He has over twenty years of experience serving as a building level principal. Prior to being a school principal, he was an English teacher, department chair, and Assistant Principal. Evan is a recipient of the Horace Mann Educator of the Year Award. In addition, the NCTE Commission on Reading selected him to serve on its national board.

A TEDx Speaker, Evan offers inspirational keynotes, workshops, webinars, and on-going professional learning opportunities on leadership, mindset, culture, impactful change, and how to improve literacy in schools. Evan has shared his ideas with thousands of educators at dozens of workshops across the United States and in other countries.

His first book titled, The Principal’s Leadership Sourcebook: Practices, Tools, and Strategies for Building a Thriving School Community was published in 2007. He then wrote The Ten-Minute Principal released in 2019. Evan and Laura Robb collaborated with Dave Burgess Publishing to write, Team Makers, which was published in August of 2019. His latest book, again with Laura Robb, is called A School Full of Readers.

Please explore The Robb Review Blog and Scholastic EDU for more of his thoughts on teaching, learning, and leadership as well as his podcast, The Robb Review Podcast. 

Finally, Evan has been named one of the top educational leaders to follow on Twitter @ERobbPrincipal. Let’s Tweet to him today #FocusED.

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ dereka206.sg-host.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district with more knowledge, better understanding, and clear direction on what to do next. 

This episode was brought to you by GhostBed, a family-owned business of sleep experts with 20+ years of experience. With 30K+ 5-star reviews, you can’t go wrong with GhostBed. Their mattresses are handcrafted, and they come with a 101-night-at-home-sleep trial. For a limited time, you can get 30% by using our code — SH302 — at checkout. And, even if you tell someone about GhostBed, you can earn a $100 referral reward. Go to Ghostbed.com today and use SH302 at checkout. 

Season 2, Episode 3 of FocusED with Todd Nesloney #FocusED

Season 2, Episode 3 of FocusED with Todd Nesloney #FocusED

by | Sep 2, 2021 | #FocusED, Action, Communication, Core Values, Culture, Daily Habits, Decision-Making, Education, Energy, Engagement, Excellence, Focus, Fulfillment, Goal Setting, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Listening, Mental Mapping, Motivation, Motivation & Retention, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Positivity, Principal Leadership, Principals, Professional Dialogue, Relationships, Resilience, Results, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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A Kids Deserve It Culture in Schools with FocusED Guest Todd Nesloney 

This is Season 2, Episode 3 of FocusED, and it features guest Todd Nesloney. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience for Delaware teachers and leaders. Don’t miss what Todd says about his experience in schools, teaching kids to shake hands, what it means to have a “kids deserve it culture,” and much more.  

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Todd Nesloney Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Todd Nesloney is the Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association (TEPSA). He has also served as an award-winning principal of a PreK-5th Grade campus of over 775 students in a rural town in Texas. He has been recognized by the White House, John C Maxwell, the Center for Digital Education, National School Board Association, the BAMMYS, and more for his work in education and with children. Todd has written four books, including Kids Deserve It, Stories From Webb, Sparks in the Dark, and his brand new book When Kids Lead. He also recently released his first children’s book Spruce And Lucy. He hosts the podcast “Tell Your Story” and is very active on social media under the moniker Tech Ninja Todd. He is passionate about doing whatever it takes for our students and helping others tell their story. 

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Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ dereka206.sg-host.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district with more knowledge, better understanding, and clear direction on what to do next. 

This episode was brought to you by GhostBed, a family-owned business of sleep experts with 20+ years of experience. With 30K+ 5-star reviews, you can’t go wrong with GhostBed. Their mattresses are handcrafted, and they come with a 101-night-at-home-sleep trial. For a limited time, you can get 30% by using our code — SH302 — at checkout. And, even if you tell someone about GhostBed, you can earn a $100 referral reward. Go to Ghostbed.com today and use SH302 at checkout. 

Season 2, Episode 2 of FocusED with Matthew Joseph #FocusED

Season 2, Episode 2 of FocusED with Matthew Joseph #FocusED

by | Aug 20, 2021 | #FocusED, Action, Communication, Core Values, Culture, Daily Habits, Decision-Making, Education, Energy, Engagement, Excellence, Focus, Fulfillment, Goal Setting, Leadership, Learning to Lead, Listening, Mental Mapping, Motivation, Motivation & Retention, Organizational Leadership, Passion, Planning and Preparation, Positivity, Principal Leadership, Principals, Professional Dialogue, Relationships, Resilience, Results, Service Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Teamwork

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Reimagining Mentorship in Education with FocusED Guest Matthew Joseph 

This is Season 2, Episode 2 of FocusED, and it features guest, Matthew Joseph. It was originally recorded live for a studio audience in Delaware, provided as a professional development experience for Delaware teachers and leaders. Don’t miss what Matthew says about mentoring programs, leading in schools, and much more.  

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Matthew Joseph Brings Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

 

Dr. Matthew X. Joseph is currently the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in Leicester Public Schools. He has been a school and district leader in many capacities in public education over his 27 years in the field. Experiences such as the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation, elementary school principal, classroom teacher, and district professional development specialist have provided Matt incredible insights on how to best support teaching and learning and led to nationally published articles and opportunities to speak at multiple state and national events. 

His master’s degree is in special education and his Ed.D. is in Educational Leadership from Boston College. He is the author of Power of Us: Creating Collaborative Schools and co-author of Modern Mentoring: Reimagining Mentorship in Education. Follow him on Twitter @matthewxjoseph, visit his website at mxjspeaker.com or visit his blog: techinnovation.live. And, don’t miss his weekly Sunday series, called Mentor Round Table. 

 

Thanks for listening to FocusED, an educational leadership podcast brought to you by TheSchoolHouse302 @ dereka206.sg-host.com where we publish free leadership content. Go to the site, subscribe, and you’ll get all of our content sent directly to your email. 

FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district with more knowledge, better understanding, and clear direction on what to do next.