What might it look like to treat the late majority in your community as the sages of your change effort? To seek their counsel before a plan is finalized—to design with them rather than defend against them? 

The integrity between what we say and what we do, that gap I noticed as an aspiring leader (the one that made me a gadfly in someone else's estimation), is exactly what the late majority are paying attention to. They’ve seen that gap before. Some have fallen into it. Many have been harmed by it.

Imagine what’s possible when we stop seeing the late majority as the people we need to move, and start seeing them as the reason we can all move together.

Many teacher evaluation systems don’t embed culturally responsive teaching patterns into their evaluation rubrics. Or, if culturally responsive teaching is embedded in the evaluation framework, it’s typically an add-on that teachers haven’t received enough support and training on. Inspired by the work of Chism (2022) and del Carmen Salazar and Lerner (2019), the Integrated Classroom Practices for Equity Rubric and Observation Guide can support observers in identifying equitable patterns of instruction.

A collaborative post with Lori Cohen and Tamisha Williams

Lessons from the natural world pervade the work that we do. We see our experiences and ways of working and being as inseparable from the seasons and what they offer. In a recent conversation, we (Lori and Tamisha) discussed the fullness of peonies and the purposeful incubation of potatoes. We recognized that just as school years, seasons, times of life end and begin anew, so, too, do we have the opportunity to celebrate buds, blooms, growth, regeneration, and the stunning impermanence that increases our capacity for growth, gratitude, and trust. We wanted to share this wisdom with you jointly, and invite you to consider the metaphors that support you this season, too.

What might be possible if we access our body and soul in our leadership?

What rituals do we have to celebrate the “now” of us, this version that exists in the fleeting present?

Presence invites a unique kind of transformation. It’s quieter than the big changes we plan or the futures we imagine. It’s found in the small, intentional ways we notice what is—in pausing to breathe, to feel, to see ourselves and others as we are in all our “right nows,” rather than our “wish we coulds” or “if onlys.”

So here’s your invitation to pause and focus on who we are today.

I want to practice more optimism, to build messy sacred community.

A process for coaches, mentors, and you to work with your emotions.

What do you do when no one is watching?

In collaboration with my colleague Tamisha Williams—someone who is a model for what it looks like to live well and sustainably—we developed a Three-Week System Reset that incorporates mindfulness, “tea breaks,” gratitude practices, and body scans/somatic work that will allow people to center well-being, build new habits, and determine the practices that will best serve them at any time of year.