Brian Hyosaka is a Chicago native and has spent time around the world I’m originally from the Chicago area and am the son of career high school special educator. I grew up playing a multitude of sports and got into coaching alongside my sister who is also a teacher. For a few summers during college, I was splitting my day interning at my dad’s company and coaching swimming. Each day, I would dread going to the office and count the hours until I could be with young people coaching swimming. That final summer proved pivotal and I came to the realization that pursuing business or an office type job was just not for me.
Thankfully, Teach For America existed to allow me to jump into teaching and utilize my bilingualism in Spanish. I knew that in order to truly give education a shot, I needed to leave my friends and family in Chicago, so I moved to Denver to teach 5th grade in a bilingual classroom. Unlike most of my friends at the time, I ended up staying in Denver for 5 years teaching in the same school. During my final 2 years, I also took on full-time teacher residents and realized I had a passion for developing educators.
At the same time, I had maintained a dream of living abroad and decided that after 5 years, the time was right to make that happen. My then fiance who is a high school counselor then applied to schools all of Latin America. We ended up landing jobs at the American School of Guatemala in Guatemala City. For us, these were two of the best years of our lives for a number of reasons. For me, I had begun to feel burned out on the constant pressure to show student achievement on a standardized test.
Working in Guatemala, we had no standardized test and I was able to grow my practice tremendously as an educator. At the same time, a new school leader came in with me my first year. It was through him that I got to witness and feel the power of an excellent leader for the first time. He not only changed the culture of the school, but also the trajectory of the school. This was the first time I really considered school leadership as a realistic pathway.
During our second year, I began to feel the pull to begin working with students where I really felt needed compared to the incredibly wealthy families we served in Guatemala. I was aware of the School Leadership Program through the University of Denver and decided that it was time to see if I might be able to follow his lead, but serving a population I really cared for.
After being accepted to the program, my bilingualism proved pivotal again and I landed an internship at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, a dual language public Montessori School in Denver. My first year at the school was eye opening to say the least. I had been used to being an effective teacher and immediately felt uncomfortable and very ineffective. I learned quickly that my strength was not direct and honest communication. I caused many tears and considered returning to the classroom midway through the year. Thankfully, I had a great mentor and the support of a peer group in my program and confronted many of the issues within my control.
As the next two years progressed, I became a far better communicator and really learned to sit beside teachers, families and students. At the same time, I was being pushed towards principalship a few different schools. After verbally accepting an offer, I realized that I was not trusting my intuition and was making decisions on a faulty premise.
Reneging in this way forced me to reconsider my complete path professionally. As a new dad, I was concerned about my ability to be present for my daughter and wife with the rigors and stress of principalship. I actually began applying to positions in the corporate world thinking that I might have both more financial stability and less work to bring home.
Around that same time, my nephew invited me on a ski trip with his school. I had actually been the one to find his school a year earlier and reluctantly joined him on the trip. His school was a micro-school in North Denver called Embark, and he was thriving there. I rode up to the mountain with Miguel, the school director, and we chatted as collegial administrators do. He mentioned that Embark would be opening a 6th grade to go along with the existing 7th/8th grade in order to capitalize on enrollment.
I didn’t think too much more about it, but I really loved what I saw on that trip from the educators and the students and went home that night feeling jealous of the school. It hit me almost immediately that I would be the next 6th grade educator at Embark. After reaching out to Miguel, interviewing, and discussing with my wife, I made the very unobvious, to some, decision to go back to the classroom.
This would potentially be looked at as a downward move, but the truth was exactly the opposite. In this position I would be given nearly full autonomy to create my own school. I had the resources, support, and tools from my experiences and viewed this as my Thesis.
Even with COVID, this year has been fantastic. With my 6th graders, we have pushed the envelope of what is possible in school with the long-term ambition of being trim-tabs in education. In my work with Miguel and anyone else in the organization, I have felt the synchronicity and empowerment to be bold. I have also built and experienced something real and powerful and found a third way.
Many lessons have been learned along the way for me, but the power of horizontal leadership and rapid thoughtful iteration are two that are currently top of mind for me.
How can we reenvision what education could look like? Lemon Lavendar Latte - Top selling spring seasonal beverage at Pinwheel Coffee. Kids got into test kitchen and brainstormed ideas. 10 different iterations before pitching to pros. Working as part of the coffee shop. See what would happen if they tried ratios that just made sense. It’s ok to see education as a game The kids who didn’t win won more. Quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and collaboration Collaboration is not a buzz word. Working together is not sitting in the same room. Attitude of those who failed. Role-playing, conferences, Not a surprise. Greatest marker of our culture is that the losers have bought more of the lemon lavendar latte. :) Infinite game vs. zero-sum game. How to be a Transformative Principal? encourage bigger thinking. What would this look like if I did it bigger? Sponsors InControl SEL for Middle SchoolIn Control created an effortless social and emotional, character development video curriculum for your students that’s ZERO-TEACHER-PREP AND it’s so cool looking- it feels like a Youtube or Netflix Series- and that’s purposeful, they meet students right where they’re at.
The videos are 5–6 minutes, kids love them, teachers love them, and you will too. There’s no guesswork in the program because there’s a 21-video progression for each grade level.
They’ve thought of everything– because it’s a group of award winning counselors, teachers, and principals that came up with this thing. It’ll help you save tons of time and headaches.
Take it from me, it’s time to check that social-emotional learning box, the empty one that’s been keeping you up at night–and it’s time to do it in a meaningful, measurable, magnetic way.
If you go to www.InControlSEL.com/jethro you can check out some of the videos and even receive 20% off if you pre-order for next school year
John CattToday’s Transformative Principal sponsor, John Catt Educational, amplifies world-class voices on timeless topics, with a list of authors recognized globally for their fresh perspectives and proven strategies to drive success in modern schools and classrooms.
John Catt’s mission is to support high-quality teaching and learning by ensuring every educator has access to professional development materials that are research-based, practical, and focused on the key topics proven essential in today’s and tomorrow’s schools.
Learn more about professional development publications that are easy to implement for your entire faculty, and are both quickly digestible and rigorous, by visiting https://us.johncattbookshop.com/.
Learn more about some of the newest titles:
- The Coach’s Guide to Teaching by Doug Lemov
The Feedback Pendulum: A manifesto for enhancing feedback in education by Michael Chiles
Putting Staff First: A blueprint for revitalising our schools by John Tomsett and Jonny Uttley
10 Things Schools Get Wrong (And How We Can Get Them Right) by Jared Cooney Horvath and David Bott
Let’s Talk About Flex: Flipping the flexible working narrative for education by Emma Turner
A Parent’s Guide to Powerful Teaching by Patrice Bain
John Catt is also proud publisher of the new book from Transformative Principal host Jethro Jones: SchoolX: How principals can design a transformative school experience for students, teachers, parents – and themselves
Visit this page to learn more about bulk orders and how to bring John Catt’s research-based materials to your school: https://us.johncattbookshop.com/pages/agents-and-distributors
