Word: Creativity Sentence: Creativity refuses to let what is become the limit of what could be. Passage: Creativity is often treated like something extra. Something for artists.Something for musicians.Something for people with paint, stages, notebooks, cameras, studios, or songs. But I think creativity is bigger than that. Creativity is what helps us move forward when the…

Word: Accountability Sentence: Accountability begins when we give an honest account of the story we are living from. Passage: Accountability is one of those words that can make people tighten up. Too often, it sounds like someone is in trouble. Someone missed the mark.Someone dropped the ball.Someone caused harm.Someone failed to meet the expectation. And in…

Word: Responsibility Sentence: Responsibility begins the moment you realize what has been placed in your hands. Passage: A note before reading: This week’s passage includes gun violence and the loss of a student. When I was an assistant principal, each fall I was handed a list of student names. We called it the Hot 75. The…

Word: Bittersweet Sentence: Bittersweet is knowing it is time to go, even when part of you still wants to stay. Passage: Graduation has always carried a strange kind of weight. It is joy and fear in the same room. A marker of progress.A door closing.A road opening.A version of yourself ending before the next one has…

Word: Hold Sentence: Hold is knowing that what matters most is meant to be carried with care, not clenched with fear. Passage: In our most stressful and uncertain moments, the instinct is to squeeze. We squeeze our plans.We squeeze our people.We squeeze our expectations.We squeeze ourselves. We tell ourselves we are just trying to keep things…

Word: Identity Sentence: Identity gets lost when what we do becomes the only place we know to find our worth. Passage: I know what it feels like to disappear inside the work. When I was a principal, the job asked for everything. My mind, my energy, my heart, my body. I carried the school with me…

Word: Fear Sentence: We have all been more fearless than we have been afraid. Passage: We forget. For me, it started in the classroom. Standing in front of students while still feeling like one myself. In a lot of ways, I taught myself how to teach. Every day felt uncertain. Every day asked something of me…

Word: Tension Sentence: Tension is what we carry when two truths exist and neither lets go. Passage: This week held both joy and heartbreak. I ran into a former student who told me he wants to become a principal. In the middle of the conversation, he turned to someone else and said I was the reason…

Word: Resonance Sentence: Resonance is what remains when the role ends, but the meaning still rings true. Passage: Leaving the principalship was harder for me than I expected. For a long time, I focused on what was unfinished. The dreams that felt so close. The ideas that had life in them but would now belong to…

Word: Connection Sentence: Connection begins when we look past what is different and stay long enough to discover what is shared. Passage: Connection often comes easiest when we can see ourselves in someone else. When the story feels familiar, the bridge is already there. I feel that with other principals all the time. There is an…