Don't Pump the Brakes

This past May was my official graduation from Columbia University . Even though I finished SPA last summer and officially graduated in October, Columbia only has one graduation each year, so here we are! As it has been said, " the hardest things in life are the most difficult to say, because words diminish them;" i t is honestly hard to articulate how incredible these last two years have been. I feel like it was just yesterday I was packing up to move to Teachers College for Summer I . These past two years have arguably pushed my thinking more than at any other point in my life. I am so honored to have made so many lifelong friendships, obtain some awesome  memorabilia for my future office , and even design a new school ! We were only given three tickets for graduation (or convocation , if you want to get technical), but I was able to get two additional tickets through my Columbia network. Invited were my parents, my sister, my mentor Marist Brother Seán Sammon , ...

As I alluded to in my  last post , three months after finishing, I am not sure that if it has hit me yet that we are officially graduates of the  Summer Principals Academy  (which we often nickname as SPA). Our degrees were conferred last month, meaning that we are all officially alumni of Columbia University! Even though we finished our program at the end of July and got our diplomas in October, Columbia only has one graduation a year, so we will “walk” this upcoming May.     The main Columbia campus  To earn a Masters from Columbia, one must either write a thesis, pass a cumulative test, or complete a capstone project, depending on the specific requirements of the program one is enrolled in. For members of SPA, we needed to complete the famous  New School Design Project . Taken from the SPA website, New School Design teams are “challenged to develop a new school that reflects the domains of knowledge, skill, and habits of mind, and is releva...

Wow. I honestly cannot believe that we are already finished with Summer I of Columbia University's  Summer Principals Academy  (SPA). These last six weeks have been such an incredible learning experience, and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with some of the best educators across the country. It was a much-needed break from the horrendous end of the school year I just went through. Between all of the student walkouts, teachers quitting daily, and (in my perspective) terrible leadership, I asked myself for the first time in my life whether there is a point when education reform goes too far. To be honest, the last four months of this past school year were the hardest four months of my career, and I was ready to put this year behind us.  The main reading room in the Butler Library "In some cases, you can fake it until you make it. You cannot fake it in SPA." A map representing our cohort by region. During our orientation in May, I genui...