For this miserably damp Friday (at least where I am; I hear there are other places nearby even more miserable and more damp), I want to share some more independent school bloggers. Our town’s Flag Day Parade is probably going to be postponed, and if yours is, too, you’ll have time to check out a few of these.
It’s safe to say the season will be winding down a bit for many of these bloggers, although I think we can look forward to some posts on the many summer conferences and workshops on tap. My Twitter feed is already rolling like Usain Bolt’s treadmill, for example, with ecstatic tweets emanating from epals in Memphis at the Martin Institute’s Transformative Learning Conference; a fair number of the principals at this event are bloggers previously listed in the first, second, and third installments of this series.
Here are a few individual blogs I’m getting to only belatedly; apologies to the authors for my tardiness:
Bill Ivey at Bill Ivey's Blog A powerful humanistic voice as well as an insightful and innovative educator, Bill Ivey recounts and reflects on stories from his own school and ponders looming issues in independent schools and in the world at large. Read Bill when you've o.d.'d on "17 Things You Must..." articles; he focuses on the real essentials: kids in a school. Brendan Schneider at schneiderB.com: Internet Marketing for Schools Everyone needs a marketing strategy with some smart applications of social media these days, and Brendan Schneider both collects good ideas but shares and comments upon them. His e-book on social media, in particular, is a great resource--but stay with Brendan for more excellent thoughts on inbound marketing. Claudia Daggett at Podium Thumps and Ponderings A strong proponent of independent school - public school partnerships as well as the executive director of the Elementary School Heads Association, Claudia Daggett comments on current trends in education as well as drawing connections between issues and ideas circulating in the larger culture and schools and learning in general. Steve Taffee at Blogg-Ed Indetermination Steve was an early leader in the serious incorporation of technology into curriculum, but his vision extends well beyond the horizons of his Silicon Valley homeland. He goes after a huge range of topics with dogged determination, and as a reader you'll be reminded that we're in a complex business which all kinds of things matter, and should matter.
Earlier on I mentioned a few head of school blogs. As you might expect, many of these focus largely on school-specific issues, but many also include some interesting, occasionally provocative, occasionally poignant, and occasionally pointed observations on trends in the education world as a whole. Here’s a sampling chosen from among those who tend to post fairly regularly, arranged (as always) by author’s first name:
Andy Watson at Albuquerque Academy (NM) Ayanna Hill-Gill at Purnell School (NJ) Chad Barnett at The Linsly School (WV) Dan Scheibe at Lawrence Academy (MA) David Farace at The Montgomery Academy (AL) David Lourie at St. Anne's-Belfield School (VA) Ed Elliott at The Perse School (UK) Gordon McNeill at Sage Hill School (CA) Lou Salza at Lawrence School (OH) Malcolm Lester at Grace Episcopal Day School (MD) Mark Davis at St. Luke's School (CT) Mike Ehrhardt at Marshall School (MN) P. David O'Halloran at Saint David's School (NY) Peter W. E. Becker at The Gunnery (CT) Pilar Cabeza de Vaca at Madeira School (VA) Rodney LaBrecque at Wilbraham & Monson Academy (MA) Sheila Culbert at The Loomis Chaffee School (CT) Steven Tobolsky at Chestnut Hill School (MA)
You can’t tell anyone now that you have nothing good to read, now, can you?
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