Author: Dave Eberwein

Napping — We Know It Can Be a Good Thing. But, It Might Be Better Than We Thought

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I do not nap.

I’m Impressed by Those Who Nap Successfully

If I ever do close my eyes during the day for a bit, I wake up grumpy and often with a headache.

I sleep at night — not during the day. When I stop to think about how many daytime naps I’ve likely had, I haven’t taken more than about a dozen since I was very young. Other people nap daily and wake up energized and ready to tackle the world.

I do not!

I’m kind of like an electric toy. I’m charged all day, doing a ton of ‘stuff’ — when I’m at home you can find me gardening, doing home repairs, in my workshop, hiking with my dog or doing some housework. I stay occupied and go pretty hard for most of the day. By the time evening rolls around I’m tired, I take out my batteries to recharge, and then I fall asleep.

The next day, I put my fully charged batteries back in and go hard again.

Yet, there are others in my family who if they could take a nap every day they would. I’m amazed at this ability.

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Leadership, Character and Congruence

/ Dave Eberwein / 3 Comments
Being ‘Character Smart’ is Key to Leadership Success

If you are in a leadership position that hires other leaders, your primary focus should be to hire people smarter than you. As Superintendent, I am in the fortunate position of having this opportunity to hire leaders smarter than me. Some might argue that’s a pretty easy target to hit — thank you for that. Although, that might explain why I’m surrounded by some pretty amazing people.

Leadership Goal: To create a leadership team with really smart people — people who push my thinking and provide the necessary conditions for us to make decisions that further the district’s mission.

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Taking A Very Personal Risk

/ Dave Eberwein / 6 Comments

Learning something new can be exciting — it can also be intimidating. A story I am about to share with you today captures both of these realities.

Several of my blog posts have talked about taking risks — about taking that chance at a new idea or new way of doing something to be better.

It can be uncomfortable. Sometimes, it can be downright frightening.

I’ll start with an example of a fairly low-risk professional learning journey I took last year. I wanted to learn more about racism — what it looks like and how it weaves its way into our language, decisions and actions. I immersed myself in the topic, wrote a few blog entries about it and even shared my learning journey with my Board of Education and others in the school district.

I learned a lot, but I felt pretty safe while doing it. Admitting that I don’t know everything about a topic is usually easy for me, so learning more about racism, while important, wasn’t super risky.

But, there WAS something I worked on last year that was intimidating — something that actually had me doubting myself along my learning journey.

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