by Donna Miller Fry (@fryed)
You might be surprised to know that not every day as a superintendent goes exactly as planned. Does any day in education go exactly as planned? I once read that teaching is more difficult than surgery. A surgeon works on something he has a clear picture of. A teacher changes children every day. That is […]
It was another long travel day yesterday (you’ll see a theme here) and another opportunity to listen to podcasts and books while driving. It turns out the podcasts that are a good cure for insomnia are not best suited for those long straight drives in northern British Columbia on the way to the Northwest Territories, […]
The ideas I’m playing with today involve education’s old model of teaching as content (information) delivery, and the definition of “information” that Yuval Noah Harari puts forward in his latest book “Nexus“. I’ve often said that I believe the “content delivery” model of teaching is at least partially responsible for the current difficulty of getting […]
It’s a travel day for me, which often means the luxury of lots of podcasts and audiobooks. I happened to have an older podcast with Dean Shareski and Chris Kennedy in my downloaded feed, and though it sparked my interest because it was about research on Superintendent work, I was delighted to hear the opening […]
In the fall of 2024, I had the remarkable good fortune of receiving an invitation to be the Superintendent of Education for the Dehcho Divisional Education Council, based in Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories, Canada. It’s an incredible honour to be chosen for this role. I have so much to be grateful for. I have promised […]
Do you know the difference between a Least Sandpiper and a Spotted Sandpiper? I don’t. I’m sitting here with hundreds of pictures of living things in my natural world, and I don’t know what they are. Over the last four days, I have been participating in the Nature Conservancy of Canada Big Backyard Blitz, an […]
It’s far too late to be up, but sleep won’t come for awhile yet. Tuesday nights, after board meetings, are always like this. As a Superintendent, you have to be “on” for the whole meeting, ready to answer any questions. Meetings are long. Reports are presented. Topics that come up can be surprising, seemingly out […]
There is no doubt that March 14, 2020 has all of us in a world that is very different from the one we anticipated. The escalation of the national and provincial responses, in a time when everyone has a voice online and facts don’t always rise to the top, creates challenges we have yet to […]
Creating the Conditions for Focused Professional Learning (Part 2): The Learning Focus When you are in a classroom, and something isn’t working, you only have 2 choices: Change the kids, or change the teaching practice! Creating the conditions for focused professional learning is the FUNCTION of the network. How do we enable the kind of […]
Creating the Conditions for Focused Professional Learning (Part 1) How do we create a learning organization when there is a power differential? If we want to create a learning organization, so it must be safe for everyone to talk. [Does your school district/division demand compliance? Is rank switched on or off?] This creates the challenge. […]
