We met on a freezing morning in January 2023 at the Annapolis Market House where she’d brought her own brewed tea, because of course she had. I listened to my own trepidation, and she handed me back my strengths with her dry wit. For the next eighteen months we met nearly every Saturday — at the Market House, in my office, sometimes over Zoom. I’d arrive with a familiar complaint: I wish I could just… And she’d ask, simply: What if you did exactly that?
Middlemarch: a long book, a book with many chapters. A book about people in quaint places, a book with pages…
At school as an academic administrator, I find my instincts are not always spot-on. (Whose are?) However, especially when meeting…
Leadership often arrives quietly, without a stage or script—because its real work happens in complexity, not in clarity. It doesn’t…
We had been talking about the barriers to AI fluency among our faculty. Concerns I take seriously came up: the…
Although the lights were off and the day was gray, students brought the sunshine. When they are offered the space…
The truth is simple and stubborn: belonging precedes learning. We keep coming back to the circle — to the campfire…
Leadership is a transfer of vision. Your primary job isn't just to reach goals, but to teach your team how…
My mother's kindness never wavers. She had plenty of reasons to be hateful and bitter — but her belief that…
Strategic change doesn’t happen in broad strokes. It happens in the patterns inside the patterns. I often ask leaders, “What…
Headship grows harder every decade, every year. And this field needs talented leaders. It may be impossible to avoid the…
Leadership, I learned, was simply another form of parenting. I mentored teachers and junior administrators the way I once guided…
Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in the AISGW Fall 2025 newsletter. It is November! Too late to deny that…
There’s a kind of peace that settles when you step into a museum — a quiet hush that demands a…
