BIG Questions Institute Update April 15, 2025, No. 183 (Read online) Deep Dive Into the Big Questions Question 1: What is Sacred? (Part 1) The ongoing disruptions in the world are forcing us to make important choices. Despite the seemingly never-ending stream of tools, programs, and methods being offered as “solutions” to what’s broken in education, pause to consider: what are the aspects of school that we want to preserve 10 or 20 years or even longer into the future? What is at the core of...
25 days ago • 4 min read
Follow-Up Resources to the 10 Principles for School Leaders When DEI + Belonging Are Attacked (An Invitation and An Example of a Response) Last week's Big Questions Institute newsletter, featuring 10 Principles for School Leaders When DEI + Belonging Are Attacked, had a tremendous response from around the world. So, we are following up with an invitation and a resource. An Invitation: Please Join Us for a Sense-making Conversation. At 8 am US Eastern time on April 3 we will hold a free,...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
BIG Questions Institute Update March 19, 2025, No. 182 (Read online) It’s Not DEI. It’s Not Belonging. It’s School in the Year 2025. Through mission-focused leadership schools can navigate complexity and uncertainty with clarity for what’s most important for kids and their learning. Last week the Wall Street Journal published an Opinion piece titled DEI and the State Department: Subsidized international schools try to evade the Trump-Rubio ban on racially divisive pedagogy, by a young writer...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
BIG Questions Institute Update January 31, 2025, No. 180 (Read online) Vision Work: Look Up. Look Away. Look Closely. At the Big Questions Institute it’s been a busy season supporting schools with their strategic plans, and what’s at the heart of that work - a vision that aligns to the future a community yearns for. Vision, by definition, involves what we see in action, so it’s useful to step back and consider: Where are we looking? At what? What lenses do we sense-make with? To uncover the...
2 months ago • 4 min read
BIG Questions Institute Update January 31, 2025, No. 178 (Read online) New Year, Many Changes: Transitions and Growth at the Big Questions Institute You might have noticed that our newsletter hasn’t been coming in your inbox this academic year (or maybe you didn’t notice!). We’d like to take this opportunity to offer a quick update behind the scenes and share some exciting changes happening with the Big Questions Institute. We are growing! We welcome new strategic planning clients like Grosse...
3 months ago • 7 min read
BIG Questions Institute UPDATE December 4, 02024, No. 177 (Read online) New: A Manifesto for Confronting Education Hey Friends, Yes, it has been a minute. Our intent was to put this newsletter on hiatus for the summer and then restart in the fall. But for various reasons, that plan did not end up happening. Apologies! That said, we are now planning to restart our bi-weekly updates after the first of the year. So stay tuned. An Important Update Briefly, we did want to get in touch right now,...
5 months ago • 1 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update July 8, 02024, No. 176 (Read online) Can You Prepare for the Unimaginable? Hey, As many of you settle into your holiday (during northern hemisphere summer) around this time of year, we offer a hearty CONGRATULATIONS! You made it through another year. We’ve had the added benefit of leading and participating in a number of summer professional development experiences (like the Leadership Seminar for Overseas Principals (LSOP) already this summer, which...
10 months ago • 8 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update June 19, 02024, No. 175 (Read online) Honoring Our Responsibility to Students...and the Future Hey, Every now and again we come across something that makes us literally tingle with goodness. And that's what happened this week when we read an amazing story from the University of Victoria Department of Education about how they approached some very difficult budget conversations earlier this year. Every school is confronted with hard decisions, whether...
11 months ago • 6 min read
BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update June 5, 02024, No. 174 (Read online) Better? Or Easier? Hey, Here’s a frame for thinking about our approach to education in this fraught moment: We’re trying to do the wrong thing righter. Let us first say first that we really believe that the vast majority of people who go into teaching and school leadership care about kids, want them to learn, hope for them to thrive and be joyful in their lives. But what if despite our best intentions, our current...
11 months ago • 4 min read
