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Pete Hall: Welcome to the Transformative Principal.
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I am so excited to share this interview from ISTE 2026 with you.
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Really fascinating things happening there.
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Lots of great people, and over the course of the next couple weeks, you're gonna hear some of these great interviews.
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Hope you enjoy, and thanks for listening to Transformative Principal
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Jethro D. Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principal.
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We're here live at ISTE ASCD
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2026. so we're here with Kip Glazer, who is, principal at Mountain View High School in Mountain View, California.
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That's where Google is, so we're gonna talk about some things today.
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Kip, what… First, you've got a great book.
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Will you talk about that a little bit first?
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Bonnie: Sure.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I wrote a book called "Ready to Lead with AI: A Practical Guide for School Leaders," and it was a book that I really thought I would read.
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There are so many great books out there, and I know that, but two things.
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One, there aren't a lot of books for school leaders that is specific to, say, AI or data or, how to manage, from a technical perspective, so I wanted to fill the gap.
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But also, I wanted to share the story of being a principal where there are so many different constituents that I have to interact with.
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Yeah.
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And each constituent group requires something different.
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So several book chapters in the book talks about, like, how you would interact with district office or teaching staff, non-teaching staff, families, students, and even the research field.
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and each chapter ends with
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suggestions and recommendations as a checklist, 'cause I'm a list person, and it just makes me very happy to check off a list.
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Yeah.
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So I was hoping that there will be people out there who would enjoy doing
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Jethro D. Jones: that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's very good.
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Now, being in, in any principal position, you have those stresses, right?
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You have, students, teachers, parents, district administration, superintendent, school board, state legislatures that you have to appease with what you're doing,
not to mention the community members, people who don't attend the school or don't have kids who attend the school but still have opinions on how things should run.
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So that's a very real issue.
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And you… This is a job that requires a lot from everybody.
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And, and it's important to have boundaries, but when you have that many stakeholders, then it's really difficult to do that.
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So what would you say about the need for, having boundaries, having, a vision for how you're going to lead and what that looks like so that you can stay sane and not lose your mind in this process?
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Bonnie: this process?
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That's a great question and
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I can't imagine there isn't any professional who is not grappling with
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah
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Bonnie: principal or not.
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Because I think so often work becomes your identity.
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And you want to be successful, obviously, and then you start doing more, and then there is a, this sort of like achievement mentality, and then eventually you look up and you go, "Where did the time go?
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And what happened to my family?" So there are a lot of professionals, not just principals, that I see, and one of the things that I think people don't necessarily understand is that the intensity comes from parents feeling like they're failing their kids.
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And the teachers feeling like they're failing their students.
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And it comes from really great place.
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Yeah.
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Every adult in school
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Whether they're aware or not, sometimes don't make the best choices.
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But I really believe everyone comes to this profession and onto the school side with all the best of intentions.
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It's just sometimes we don't really see the details of what that looks like, or we disagree what that should look like, and it creates a lot of stressors.
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And we do it to each other, too,
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Jethro D. Jones: yeah.
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and the thing about that is that everybody does come with the best intentions.
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and then when they-- when the rubber hits the road, there's questions on whether that is actually the right thing to do.
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And because there are so many stakeholders, there's so many different opinions on what the right thing to do actually is.
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And so you can't just be like, "All right, we know," for example, "We know that you should eat vegetables." So that's not really
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controversial.
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But what the vegetables are in schools, a lot of people have different opinions on.
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And as we were talking the other day as we got to know each other, you've been doing some cool things at your school.
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I did some cool things at my schools, and we agree on a lot of those things.
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But there are some people who would say that's the absolute wrong way to do it.
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Yep.
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So how do you manage when you know there's a good way that you believe in, and how do you deal with the people that, don't agree with that?
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Bonnie: Such a great question.
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Couple different ways.
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One, I lean into the literature research, and I think there is something to be said about relying on the field to give you the assurance and credibility to continue with your strategies Two, I think I lean into understanding where these sort
of opinions are coming from, and I think the biggest challenge that today's school leader or educators are having is that a lot of people, especially parents or leaders, create this narrative in their head based on their own school experience.
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Yeah.
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And I have to do a lot of communication and explaining that today's school is not the school of your day.
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Today's school is not even the school of pre-pandemic.
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Yeah.
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So to apply your schema to what we are trying to do, you're already starting at a place of deficiency or difference.
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Yeah.
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And that's why I recommend fellow school leaders or teachers to focus on sharing the positive stories.
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And I think media has lots of this exception to the rule stories, but not enough what's actually happening on the ground stories.
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Yeah.
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It's because it's not as exciting or scandalous, right?
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Yeah.
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Like kids showing up to school and love learning.
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What?
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Yeah.
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That happens every single
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Jethro D. Jones: In fact, that is actually the majority- Yes
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Bonnie: Yes.
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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Bonnie: Yes.
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Yeah.
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Yet we just post things that are just out of the norm, and it gets perpetuated, right?
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Yeah.
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So I just feel like we have to do more intentional celebration of what's going right at school sites.
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That's why I started to be very active on social media to celebrate my school, because if I don't do it, who's gonna do it?
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If I don't say my teachers are amazing- Yeah … if I don't say my students are amazing, my community's fantastic, who's gonna do that?
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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Because one, nobody else has insight into that.
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Kip Glazer: Facts.
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Jethro D. Jones: And the other thing is that n- nobody feels like they can speak for the school.
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So you have to, as the principal, be the one who does that.
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So you mentioned, relying on research, and then you talked about media.
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And one of the things that I find so fascinating is that, the research is focused on, we need to know what works, and we need to see that it works across multiple groups and all this kind of stuff.
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It needs to be done a certain way so we can extrapolate and say, "This will work with my people." But the media is the exact opposite because they take the one story about one situation and make that the focus.
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And this is something that even though I've been alive for a long time
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I only
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recently started seeing that this was the case.
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And so journalism is about telling one story from one perspective, basically.
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And yes, they get corroboration and that kind of stuff, but it is almost the opposite of what we do in research, which is we know that this works 'cause it works across a bunch of different people.
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And it's just so fascinating because we have to manage and deal with both of these things as principals and in making educational decisions.
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And the other thing that I wanted to comment on is-- Or do you have anything to add to that?
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Bonnie: Yeah, that's a great observation, and I do work with a lot of researchers, and I also try to make sure that they're not holding their knowledge within their fields.
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And I found myself being fascinated by when I first encountered "How People Learn" book, I was searching another way to be a better teacher
late at night because whatever I was doing based on my training or my experience or talking to my experienced colleagues wasn't working.
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it was not working, and I said, "There has to be a better way," and I found this book, and it was transformational.
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If anybody listening to this, please read my book, obviously, but if you don't read my book, go read "How
People Learn." It's free online.
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National Academies put it out as a PDF, and there are s- there is so much goodness in that book to be a transformational educator, and that really is where we should lean into it.
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The tragic part about it is that it's been out for 25 years, and school does not look anything like what "How People Learn" book- Yeah … wanted us to build.
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And so where is the disconnect?
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I think we do have to take some responsibility.
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When I say we, w- current educators and current school leaders.
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So often, we're so busy doing our job, we allow someone else to tell our
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stories.
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Yes.
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And we have to take that narrative back.
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Our kids are so thoughtful, they're so amazing, and they're saying, "Adults, please build safer tools. Adults, please don't destroy environment." at my school, we have green team.
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They are organizing safe ride school days.
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They ride bikes, and they talk about how to keep the planet safe and secure for the future generation.
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And so I do believe that educators should speak up when they see good things happening, and I would love those stories to go viral
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah, exactly.
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And the thing is that those are happening all around us.
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And again, that's the vast majority.
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And so going back to the disagreements piece, the other part besides just leaning on the research you mentioned, and I wanna dig into it a
little bit deeper, is the need to dialogue and talk and listen to what people are saying and how their How they feel things should happen.
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and what I have found works for me is that when I have a parent specifically who disagrees or anybody else, I try to go back to what we really are trying to do.
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We're trying to, to educate these kids and help them become successful adults.
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And so I start back there and say, "Is that what you're trying to do?"
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And everybody says, "Yes, of course, that's what I'm trying to do," because that is what they're trying to do.
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And so then we start talking about, "Okay, if that's what we wanna do, here's the situation, and here's how I think we should do it, and you're saying you wanna do it this way.
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Let's talk about which one of these is going to work better.
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What do we think?
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Let's look at the research.
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Let's take into consideration the individual student or whatever." and what it really comes down to is that regardless of what we try to do, learning is really an individualized pursuit.
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It is individual to every single person.
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You can have twins sitting in the same class, and they'll get something different out of the class because it's individualized.
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Now, that doesn't mean that everything we do has to be individualized to that individual person, and we probably can't.
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There's benefit to having a teacher teach something and have it be different.
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So what other things would you add to that?
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Bonnie: That's an interesting way of looking at it, and I think there's some profound truth to that.
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For me, whether I'm working with a parent or student or my colleagues, I always ask this question, "What problem are we trying to
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solve?"
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And that sort of sometimes stops them, right?
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Because there are few different types of challenges that get introduced to the conversation.
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One is some people are unhappy because they lack the knowledge and information.
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Other people are just unhappy to be
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unhappy.
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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Bonnie: So I wanna differentiate that first.
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are you, in this co-solution creation space?
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Then I'll explain it.
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"Here's what you are missing because you're not-- You don't have my job, and here are the state regulations, board policies," whatever.
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And I find that especially my parents, they actually appreciate it.
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Yeah.
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Th- they wanna know why the answer's the way or whether it's yes or no, both times.
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And then there are some people who are just, I don't know why, they're just upset and they're just angry.
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And I got better at just sitting there and listening.
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And so when I say, "What problem are we trying to solve?" And you can kinda tell, "There is no problem.
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You are the problem." Okay. Then there, there is "Okay.
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Noted."
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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" Bonnie: Yes." And I just sit there.
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And I think that's the stressor or the emotional requirement or demand to the leaders that don't, doesn't necessarily get exposed.
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Yeah.
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Because we think that being a leader is about having the knowledge, being able to articulate all of those things.
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very important.
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But I think post-pandemic, we talk a lot about kids coming back broken, and I don't think we have paid attention enough to the adults coming back with, quote-unquote, "broken."
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And it requires a lot more emotional
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responses
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or emotional patience to really sit through that discomfort, and I think leaders today are asked to carry that without a lot of support.
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Jethro D. Jones: Yep, for sure.
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And, yeah, that was good.
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So my- … my last question, bef-before I get to that, the real question is, if people wanna follow you, connect with you, how do they do that?
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Bonnie: They can find me on LinkedIn.
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That's where usually I share a lot of thoughts.
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just to give you a quick, I'm a very direct person and honest person, and early in my career, somebody told me like, "Oh, you need to learn to be more diplomatic." And I go, "I think I'm a, I'm a pretty diplomatic human.
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I don't think I'm, like, rude," but sometimes directness can be conflated as rudeness, But I just don't know how to be any other way, 'cause I feel like I wanna respect your time by being super direct.
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So one night, I was getting really irritated, so I wrote this little letter, "Dear EdTech companies, stop creating solutions in search of problems."
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And people started to follow me, so I have some folks who are interested in what I have to say, which was also delightful,
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Kip Glazer: Yeah.
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Bonnie: wow, people actually care what I have to say.
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you can find me on LinkedIn.
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I'm also on Instagram, but mostly
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Jethro D. Jones: Yep.
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All right.
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Kib Glazer or k- yes, Glazer.
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Kib Glazer, look for her on LinkedIn.
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The last question is, one thing that a principal can do this week to be a transformative principal like you?
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Bonnie: Wow, that's a big question.
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I think they should reach out to someone who they trust and ask them for perspective or advice.
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It helped me a lot, and it doesn't have to be your fellow principal.
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I think you can just ask anyone, even if it's just a student, "How are you doing? doing?" And just so that they can build that empathetic muscle, and I think that helped me a lot.
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And I hear their stories or their stressors, and I think, my life is pretty good."
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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Bonnie: People are generally nice- because educators, right?
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So I say connect with someone, build community, and just enjoy the stories so that you can be assured there that what you're doing is having a positive impact.
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Jethro D. Jones: Yeah.
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Very good.
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Kip, thank you so much for being part of Transformative Principal Day.
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Bonnie: Today.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Jethro D. Jones: you so much for having me.
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Yep