SMS Principal Blog

"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things." -Peter Drucker In education there are some things we have in abundance-- mandates, frustrations, passion, love for our students, etc.-- while there are clearly other things that tend to be in short supply--most notably, time and money. In order to address the myriad of mandates, standards, and needs that fall on our shoulders, we have to be both effective and efficient in everything we do. This is an ongoing process of evaluation and re-evaluation of everything we spend time on.  As we head into this second semester, I encourage all of you to evaluate the assignments that you are giving in class. Make sure that each and everything you are spending time and energy to have students complete gives you a clear picture of what they have learned. If you have an assignment that is not completed by a student, and you don't feel like that missing assignment represents a meaningful piece of asse...

"Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students." -Charles Kuralt This seems like such a simple statement; one that many of us would read without much thought because it seems so obvious that it hardly warrants further thought. However, I would say that there is a lot to unpack from this simple, obvious statement, and it gets to the heart of what I love about working with all of you.  What does it mean to say you bring out the best in students? I think back on my time in the classroom, and I have very fond memories of two kinds of students. There were those kids who came in to class with great attitudes, outstanding work ethic, impeccable organization and time management skills, and a willingness to engage in the learning process. I really enjoyed these kids. They were so fun to have in class and to get to know. Spending time with them was easy and fun. I liked to picture my own children growing up to be like them. They made me feel like a good teacher, b...

"Celebrate what you want to see more of." -Tom Peters This time of year, it isn't hard to find articles about New Year Resolutions and how we should come up with them, keep them, and then ultimately abandon them. I love the idea of starting a year fresh with lofty goals. On January 1st, everything seems possible. My wife and I always joke that we start every year saying it is going to be the best year ever because of all of the goals we lay out for the coming year, but then we invariably get about 30 minutes into the thing before we end up doing the familiar dance of simply trying to survive 24 hours at a time for 12 straight months. I'm sure that if we really reflected, we would find that we actually did accomplish some of those goals, but we were too stressed out and exhausted to realize it. Normally, I'm not one to brag on myself, but in my lifetime, I have actually kept my New Year Resolution for an entire year on three separate occasions. Two of those ...