Background
I have enjoyed teaching success for over 20 years. Whether in high school or middle school, whether in math, PE, or computer classes, whether GATE or at risk, I've seen students come to a place where they pour their heart into a project and produce work beyond their expectation and the expectation of others. I've enjoyed student favor, staff favor, and industry favor. An intuitive grasp early on became characterized in Seymour Papert's Mindstorm book where he sums up student learning in one word, engagement. For the past 15 years, I've taken this favor and belief about student learning and sought to disciple others.

My Education Ethics
Standards-based system - I believe that all children can learn. Behind this statement lies foundational positions:

• Standard - One must declare a clear and complete definition of what a child must know and be able to do by a certain point.

• Rubric - all stakeholders must agree upon and understand how good is good enough, a clarity that allows one to see whether a standards has been met or not.

• Performance Assessment - what must a student do to demonstrate that he/she has mastered the standard. A rubric is also attached to this performance to judge the student's level of achievement of the standard. Again, it must be agreed upon as to how good is good enough. The rubric helps answer the question, "would additional teaching or intervention help a student reach this level of achievement?"

The Pedagogy of Constructivism:

• I believe that children learn not as blank slates to be filled but as active minds constructing new meaning out of prior knowledge and experience. Knowing a child's zone of proximal development leads to scaffolding.

• I believe that experience always trumps good teaching and as such, what is known from experience must be exposed before new understanding can take hold.

• I believe in teaching the child over the program.

The Pedagogy of Engagement
I believe that engagement is the most powerful element to student learning. Engagement is revealed when students love what they do, when they perform before an authentic audience, when they add value to their world.

The Pedagogy of Instructional Technology
For me, technology has always been about engagement. As a tool, it affords unique learning environments that greatly increase the potential for student achievement. I can't imagine a teacher who truly understands technology power and has tasted the passion students bring to an assignment not embracing it for all its worth. And yet as Larry Cuban's Oversold & Underused points out, access and technical skill have not moved teaching from a top-down, teacher-driven mode to a student-driven, project based environment.

On Leadership
A leader is one who takes you to a place you would not have gone without. Implied in this view is the role of a shared vision. A shared vision does not mean the you share the vision with your colleagues and subordinates and expect them to carry it out. It mean rather that the vision is developed by all stakeholders, becomes personal to all stakeholders such that all stakeholders carry it out with passion and persistence. This type of vision is much harder to achieve but provides deeper sustainable reform.

The leader is the artist composing a picture, a vision with all the stakeholder colors. His own color may or may not be the dominant color. He may pick the subject but throughout the process and in the end, all own the painting, all have left their mark, all have contributed. With each decision made, with each event, the picture becomes clearer and clearer.