Trust Them
If you want to be able to trust them later, you have to trust them sooner. This is a core tenet of my approach as an educator and as a parent: let your trust spread as wide and as deep as it possibly can. The key to making this work […]
Human Nature
Aptitude/Passion/Need
Where these three overlap, is where you will do your most valuable work. There are skills you develop because you have an aptitude for them. There are skills you develop because you have a passion for them. There are skills you develop because you have a need for them. Some […]
Don’t Be Closed Off
We tend to close ourselves off to things we can’t do. I know there are choral professionals who won’t let others visit their rehearsals, or who avoid hearing other choirs, because they don’t want to be exposed for what they can’t do. But opening yourself up to what you can’t […]
Voting With/For Love
I’m voting for candidates who embody love for their fellow human beings. For me, that’s a core value. We can agree or disagree about economic policy, about educational policy, about almost anything. But we need to agree on love as a core motivation for decision-making. Love is a cornerstone of […]
How Long Was That Meeting?
We all have the capability to do virtual meetings. Does that mean they’re always the best choice? Of course not. There are many values to meeting in person, particularly when new groups are working to build capacity and develop their relationships. But with a world fluent on Zoom meetings, the […]
Too Much Temporarily
When you’re the deep water of too much work, too many responsibilities, too little time to breathe, it’s easy to feel like it’ll be that way forever. I have been trying to remind myself daily – hourly! – that it’s too much, but only temporarily. In my conversations with Alice […]
I Still Love Doing This!
Happiness is being able to say, “I still love doing this!” well into your career. Sometimes you get bogged down in the daily to-do lists and are just trying to stay on top of what comes next. But I hope that some part of your job, at least once in […]
Turn Away From Today
Drop some balls today so you won’t have so many to juggle tomorrow. The only way to stop feeling like you’re triaging your work life, day after day, is to turn away from today. Drop everything, for a little while, and look further ahead. Two days, two weeks, a month […]
Anger Rarely Works
Anger alienates. Always. Communicating with anger rarely solves a problem, and can often make it worse. As and educator, I believe that anger is never a tool that teaches, so if possible, I never want to use it at all. This goes for all types of communication, and double for […]
Learning What Makes You Happy
How is it not obvious? It seems an almost universal challenge to learn to differentiate between things we do to make ourselves happy things we do to make the people around us happy. As an educator, it’s essential that we master the art of helping our students find what makes […]