“….Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is […]
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Because of Them, We Can
“Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On their shoulders, we stand. We step forward because of the vision, the life, and the legacy, of people like, Rev.Dr. Martin […]
The Mindful, Reflective School Leader
The effectiveness of mindfulness practices on students and teachers is supported by hundreds of empirical studies and many organizations specialize in helping teachers and students bring mindfulness into the classroom and other learning environments. However, my experience in co-writing The Mindful School Leader: Practices for Your Leadership and School (Corwin, 2014) is that school leaders […]
Coming to Light: Cultivating Clarity for Leaders through the Quaker Clearness Committee
The clearness committee, developed by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), is an individual and communal process of spiritual discernment, an instrument to understand the movement of God (in Quaker terms) in a person’s life, and a way for a community to offer support and guidance at critical times. The Light Within is one […]
Pilgrimage: A Path of Practice for the New Activism
It was a long day on El Camino, The Way of Saint James, the famed thousand-year old pilgrimage route across the north of Spain. I set out at daybreak and now the sun was setting low on the dusty hills. As I rounded the final bend of the day, my back- pack and boots heavy, […]
Fly Fishing & Leadership Lessons
Fly-fishing looks effortless but that’s deceiving. It’s an intensely complex process. The angler needs to know exactly the right ‘fly’ to cast to lure fish. She needs to know how to cast, when to cast, and where to stand in the stream. She needs to understand the depth and speed of the water, and be mindfully aware of […]
Welcoming the Strong Black Woman among Us
Tamika, an assistant principal in a large urban school, is strong; she’s been told this for as long as she can remember. For Tamika, being strong is a heavy load, a burden that she has carried selflessly and silently nearly all her life, a burden she can’t put down. She is the consummate workaholic who […]
8 Ways School Leaders Can Practice Empathy in Listening
“…when we learn how to listen more deeply to others, we can listen more deeply to ourselves.” ~ Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness Research on listening indicates that the we spend about 80% of our waking hours communicating: Writing 9% Reading 16% Speaking 30% Listening, to people, music, TV, radio, etc. 40-50% About 75% of […]
Courageous Authenticity: Post-Election Reflections from the Academy for Leaders at Pendle Hill
By Valerie Brown and Gayle Williams “Is it possible to become more intentional about creating spaces – in relationship, community – where our fearful shadows can emerge into the light to be seen for what they are, when the truth and love within us can appear and make a claim on our lives?” – Parker […]
What Empathetic School Leaders Do
“…every trouble wants to draw the very best of you into the world.” —Mark Nepo, from Seven Thousand Ways to Listen When trouble happens sometimes we want to avoid conflict, look the other way, or pretend that there aren’t any problems until things go back to normal. This approach hurts more than it helps. The […]
