Circle Game

The past few years, Milton has leaned heavily into restorative justice and circle training. This year, we've done almost nothing with all that training and time beyond a few sessions training people on how to keep a circle. I love the intent of circles (or, as another blog calls them, spaces for listening) but the…

New Year, New Month, New Pages

Every month I set up my notebook for the coming month, and every week I set it up for the coming week.  It's been a long process, trying to figure out what system works and how to make it consistently work for me.   Because of work, I can't go completely analog, and because (like many)…

Where are you from?

If you've followed the recent Royal gossip, or been part of any diversity training, you know that that simple question has become loaded. When I started at Milton, during orientation, we were paired off and asked to learn about the other person's journey, and that was one of the questions. My partner was from a…

(from the archives) Agendas

Nancy wrote a post about creating a shared agenda back in 2020, and it's been sitting in my "to think about" folder for a while. This year, our new Dean of Faculty has been using the format for our Faculty Meetings and Department Chair Meetings, and this old post popped into my head. The biggest…

October, a month of challenges

Maybe it’s just at Milton, but October is one of those months that starts… and stops… and starts again. Weekly. Between the Jewish High Holidays, a Wednesday for PSATs/Community Engagement/college stuff, Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day, and Upper School Family Weekend/Diwali, we haven’t had a complete week. And next week, with a late start for professional development…

Moving slowly

In my post on what things would be like if I were in charge, I mentioned a three-year plan that would be my ideal progression. A reader commented What kind of supports do you think you would need in order to actually make this three year plan a reality? Well, the first -- and most…

Roadblocks

There was a great comment on my post If I were in charge, in which the question "what roadblocks prevent you from trying this out?" How long do you have? Seriously, this is one of the realities of independent school librarianship (and probably public school librarians will also agree): faculty do not always feel the…

What we did in AY22: an infographic

Of course that only scrapes the surface of what we did - from creating displays and printing crosswords for students to working with classes on recreational reading and research skills. Not to mention starting the year with literally bare walls and having to unpack and set up our office and workroom while also getting ready…

From the archives: Taking that PTO

There has been a lot of change and movement in the world thanks to COVID and the Great Resignation, and people have been thinking and rethinking the idea of "time off". Anne Peterson has a good column about why the "feel free to take time off" directive doesn't work as well as it could, mostly…

From the archives: Moving up a stage

This isn't quite "leveling up" and it could possibly be thought of as moving down a stage, but it is movement. What am I talking about? In this post, Shelagh discusses these professional stages: Theorist Donald Super offers these 5 stages of self-concept & career development:  Like Shelagh, I'm in the maintenance phase, but moving…