I read a number of healthy blogs.  Many of the bloggers I follow are friends and colleagues. When one of them publishes a cute blog survey, others quickly follow.  I have now read 4-5 versions of this survey and finally decided to add my own thoughts, with a leadership and learning twist.  Feel free to play along in the comments with your leadership or personal answers!

Five Places I’m Dying To Visit

• A school district with a positive culture and climate that has equity as a central focus, where students and adults thrive in a fun, supportive learning community
• A school district (other than my own!) where the Superintendent is a true Instructional Leader
• A university-based teacher education program that prepares teachers for the realities of teaching in an urban setting in the 21st Century (and ditto for leaders!)
• A local EdCamp in my own district, co-created by an amazing team of teacher leaders!
• An upcoming Learning Forward conference!

Five Tasks I Do Every Day

• Journal for personal leadership reflection
• Check and response to email
• Speak to my colleagues
• Read Twitter for educational inspiration
• Smile- this work is fun!

Five Talents I Wish I Had

• Change-easer- the ability to help educators navigate through complex change painlessly
• Balancer – the ability to seamlessly find balance between work and personal life
• Cheerleader – the ability to cheer for people all around our system- acknowledging their efforts, approximations, successes, and repeated attempts!
• Sharer – the ability to share the great things happening in our schools with everyone around the world as they happen (Social Media makes this more possible than in the past, but it’s not a perfect system yet) and interact with others about our work
• De-hoarder – the ability to help educators minizing their hoarding tendencies, limit the amount of paper we hold onto, and help others organize their work spaces and lives

Five Leaders I Wish I Could Work With

• Elena Aguilar – a leader in coaching and supporting the work of coaches
• Dr. Anthony Muhammad – A leader in the field of culture and climate
• My friend and former colleague Shelley Burgess– anytime anywhere!
• My friend and a member of my doctoral committee Dr. Leighangela Brady – a passionate leader focused on innovative ideas to personalize learning for all students
• My friend and former colleague Pauline Leavitt – another passionate leader focused on the learning success of all students while creating a professional environment that supports her staff

Five Twitter Hashtags I Love

• #LeadLAP – Lead Like a Pirate, created by Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf – I can’t read their book!
• #educoach – Created by Kathy Perret, Jessica Johnson and Shira Leibowitz – the chat takes place every Wednesday evening
• #satchatwc – This is a west coast spin off of an east coast original chat.  I was once  a co-moderator.  Now I love spending my Saturday morning being inspired by the positive, uplifting topics!
• #Read16in16 – This inspired me in 2015 and this year to blog about all of the books I’m reading and to share them with others.
• #tcrwp – Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project – I’ve written about my love of this work before and it will always have a special place in my heart (the feed is FULL of classroom examples of amazing literacy instruction!).

Five Blogs I Love To Read

• Lead Like a Pirate blogs by Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf
• Carrie Gelson’s blog There’s a Book for That
• SmartBlog on Education
• ASCD InService Blog
• Anything by Elena Aguilar

Five Phrases I Have On Repeat 

• Voice and choice matter in student AND adult learning
• What can we celebrate from that classroom/ meeting/ workshop?  What is going well for students?
• What do YOU think?
• Have you explored Twitter?
• We are creating personalized professional growth pathways

Five Books On My To-Be-Read List

• Explore Like a Pirate by Michael Matera
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom by Kristin Souers with Pete Hall
• The Multigenerational Workplace by Jennifer Abrams
• The Art of Coaching Teams by Elena Aguilar

What five things are important to your leadership and learning?