The Balcony View

I didn't want to run this morning, but I always feel better if i do. So I did. That was good. Arrived at my office with the intention of spending some time on a book project that is now due much sooner than it once was. As is often the case, the day played out differently than my Google Calendar indicated it would. The first order of business was to help get some doctoral students situated for writing their comprehensive exams. They started at 9 am and it is after 3 pm now. Several are still applying what they know to some challenging questions. Reminded me of what an important step this is on their personal and professional journeys. That's cool. Then I started digging into some end of the semester things. Made some comments and notes on a final chapter in a book that my excellent future principals from Iowa's Urban Education Network have been reading. Emailed that to them, as class time in our final meeting next Monday will be devoted to them sharing action resear...

I revisited the Mustang Stealth Defense this weekend after saying goodbye to my friend Steve Clark after his battle with lymphoma. I'll miss his loyalty, work ethic, and sense of humor. That was a good man. Through some tears, it was good to revisit the Stealth. Sad as we are, we also know how much Steve loved a good laugh. And that night in Eddyville gave us many over the years. Here's the story, again, for those who have forgotten and for the first time for those unfortunate to only learn of it now. Saw this beauty a couple of weeks ago and laughed out loud. In the interest of self-disclosure, I'm part guilty and part proud, in a tongue-in-cheek, can't believe that happened kind of way. On a cold winter night in about 1997, I was coaching basketball at Davis County High School . We were in a tough road game in Eddyville, IA and not playing particularly well. As I recall, there was a timeout and we made a substitution to try and bring some life to our defense...

A couple weeks ago, a reporter from KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids asked me to comment on a new website aimed at helping students report bullying and harassment at school. The website is sponsored by the Eychaner Foundation , which sponsors Iowa's Matthew Shepard Scholarship, as well as a minority scholarship for high school students in DeKalb, Illinois. I wrote about the organization and its founder, Rich Eychaner, in The Principal's Challenge . In addition to contributing more than a million dollars for scholarships in the last ten-plus years, Eychaner and his foundation have contributed mightily to civil rights and tolerance in Iowa and beyond. Before the interview , I needed to get familiar with how the website  works. After a kid makes a report, the school receives an email and letter through the postal service with the report. The website also includes the foundation's privacy policy and how they handle the information. As a former principal, I first thought about how t...

A couple of years ago, we revised the curriculum in our principalship program . One of our many goals was to get our future leaders out of their comfort zones and broaden their perspective around issues like culture and poverty. We know many school people are "good at" school because it is a middle class endeavor. Among other things, requiring field-based internship experiences in a non-profit/social service setting seemed like a good way to begin broadening our future leaders' experiences. Yesterday I read a reflection written by an excellent student, Tracy Kelly, an elementary teacher from Woodbine , IA  who had completed her non-profit internship experience at a food bank. She described how, the evening before, the furnace in their house had gone on the fritz and she had recently hit a deer (on the way home from class, of course). These frustrations added to the every day stress of a teacher, wife and mother. She described a couple of teenage boys who seemed a litt...

In the spring of 1993, I was a year out of college and trying to come up with a suitable answer to "What do you want to do with your life?" I was a new husband and college graduate with the ever-marketable sociology degree working for the Missouri Department of Mental Health in Kansas City. A few months ago, I described  here  how I knew I needed a change. I had some work to do in order to become a teacher and coach. First and foremost, I needed to complete a number of classes to earn my certification to teach. One spring day, I walked into Mason-Halpin Fieldhouse on the campus of  Rockhurst College  (now University). I asked the secretary if Frank Diskin, the Director of Athletics and men's basketball coach was available. He was. I sat down in Coach Diskin's office and explained a bit of my history and that I now wanted to teach and coach. Told a bit about my good fortune of having played for  Eldon Miller  at  UNI . Talked a bit about my new wife...

I tweeted Friday night that I enjoyed having dinner with members of the 2008 All-Iowa Cohort. This tight-knit group of school leaders had again gathered to celebrate their graduation. I learned a few things that I didn't know while I had them in class, which is probably a good thing for everyone. I also learned that in one of my earlier posts  I unintentionally spilled the beans about a pregnancy in the group. This apparently caused a little disappointment among some who expected to hear this great news from a source other than The Balcony View . Hmmm. And I thought no one was reading. As I listened to them banter and tease each other, I remembered how they challenged and pushed each other as students. After just a few weeks together, it became easy to anticipate the positions certain members of the cohort were going to take on particular issues. Exploring, unpacking, questioning, and reevaluating those strongly held beliefs became an important part of the experience. And th...

This semester as I have done before, I invited UNI men's basketball coach  Ben Jacobson  to speak to my class of aspiring school principals, and not just because Panther Basketball is in my blood. The reason is there are so many parallels between teaching and coaching and leading a team and leading a school. Listening to Jake talk with my students for the fifth semester, I was struck by several things. Chief among them is how much leaders in other fields can learn from some, but not all, coaches. I'd be the first to say that one couldn't and shouldn't drop just any college or professional level coach into a graduate class and expect it to work. But Jake's message always does. Since reading  Reframing Organizations  by Bolman and Deal, I've believed their assertion that, over time organizations take on the personality of their leaders, for better or worse. Jake's teams are as good of an example of that as I can think of. Focused, methodical, not prone to kn...