By Sierra Downs The First Year “Genghis Khan was a pretty good guy, actually.” This concluding remark to a student essay written during my first year of teaching has haunted me for years. I had just begun teaching history at the middle school level and had high expectations for my classroom–I wanted to encourage my students to ask big questions, consider lofty ideas, and allow the subject to shape the way that they saw themselves […]
The Middle Season: Thriving All the Way Through Change
By Anna Surratt The Middle Season In my last post, I offered encouragement to school leaders endeavoring on change initiatives at the beginning of the school year. While I hope that the encouragement from that post inspired a strong start to the school year, I know very personally that we are in a much different season as we head into the second semester of school. In this Harvard Business Review article, Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls […]
Nurturing Leaders, Building Bonds: The Baylor School Leadership Experience
By Sahira Kodra Reflecting on my journey in Cohort 2 of the Baylor School of Education’s Master of Arts in School Leadership (MASL) program, time has flown by faster than expected. It’s still somewhat unbelievable that I walked the stage just last month. As our team starts to welcome Cohort 4, I’m excited to share that Cohort 3 is preparing for their graduation this December. The palpable sense of excitement and achievement is evident as […]
Educational Leadership through a Global Lens
By Dr. Bill Sterrett, Dr. Erik Ellefsen, and Jill Anderson In 2023, the Baylor Center for School Leadership’s (BCSL) efforts expanded in unexpected ways through being invited into communities around the world. With a bit more cultural familiarity, the BCSL team had the opportunity to visit schools and speak in England, Canada, and Australia. Invited into new settings, the BCSL led Just Teaching leadership networks in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In March 2024, […]
A Promise Kept
By Bill Sterrett, Ph.D. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion […]