social-emotional

Servant Leadership

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

I first heard about the concept of Servant Leadership several years ago and appreciated its main ideas:

  • A servant leader is someone who “shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.”

It’s really about framing one’s MINDSET about how you relate to others in the workplace — about how one goes about their day — in other words, how a leader thinks, speaks and acts to support the people in the organization.

When I contextualize it for myself, I picture it being about my words and my actions that build the confidence, abilities and leadership in others. It’s also an area where I continually think of ways to become better.

Being part of a smaller school district, it is imperative that I lead in areas that build capacity — both in individuals and in our district. It is capacity that helps to build the redundancies in skills and knowledge which enable our district to withstand things like sudden illnesses or departures.

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Is Remote Learning the Future of Public Education?

/ Dave Eberwein / 2 Comments

I love it when we have these types of conversations — the debates about what ‘works’ and what ‘doesn’t work’. It’s these types of dialogue that help us move forward in our thinking and plans to make education even better. This one discussion about remote learning is particularly interesting during the COVID-19 pandemic — and gaining in some frequency — as we have found some system success along with some real challenges.

  • Is remote learning the future for public education?
  • Has the pandemic showed us a better way to teach and learn?
  • Have we seen the utopian light?

As with most topics in education, one often hears opposing arguments — and there’s certainly no exception with remote learning. There are some pretty strong opinions being generated:

“Remote learning is fantastic. My child is able to focus on their own schedule and terms without the distractions at school.”

“Remote learning is terrible. There is no meaningful social interaction with their peers or teachers. Motivation is difficult and they can’t stay focused on their computers”.

Each opinion is sometimes accompanied by articles or media posts supporting the perspective

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The Importance of Sleep – Some New Research

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

As we head into the doldrums of the long, dark days of January I thought I’d write about the importance of sleep. We know that sleep is important and that we could all likely use more of it. However, here are some points that are worth noting again. An article from Nov 2019 lists the Top 10 Reasons for getting a good night’s sleep:

  1. Sleep keeps your heart healthy
  2. Sleep may help prevent some cancers
  3. Sleep reduces stress
  4. Sleep reduces inflamation
  5. Sleep makes you more alert
  6. Sleep improves your memory
  7. Sleep may help you lose weight
  8. Napping makes you smarter (THIS one I really like!)
  9. Sleep may help you reduce your risk of depression
  10. Sleep helps your body repair itself

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