Timothy D. Kanold - Heart!: Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader

HEART!

Fully Forming

Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader

Timothy D. Kanold

Copyright 2017 by Solution Tree Press

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kanold, Timothy D., author.

Title: Heart! : fully forming your professional life as a teacher and leader / Timothy D. Kanold.

Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016055488 | ISBN 9781943874439 (perfect bound)

Subjects: LCSH: Teachers--Professional relationships. | Educational leadership.

Classification: LCC LB1775 .K28 2017 | DDC 371.2/011--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055488

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Solution Tree Press

President and Publisher: Douglas M. Rife

Editorial Director: Sarah Payne-Mills

Managing Production Editor: Caroline Weiss

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Text and Cover Designer: Laura Cox

Editorial Assistants: Jessi Finn and Kendra Slayton

This book is dedicated to Rick DuFour: practitioner, teacher, leader, colleague, and friend, whose heartprint on education exists deep within the potential of future generations.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/HEART to access materials related to this book.

Table of Contents

About the Author

Timothy D. Kanold, PhD, is an award-winning educator, author, and consultant. He is former director of mathematics and science and served as superintendent of Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125, a model professional learning community district in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

Dr. Kanold is committed to equity and excellence for students, faculty, and school administrators. He conducts highly motivational professional development leadership seminars worldwide with a focus on turning school vision into realized action that creates greater equity for students through the effective delivery of professional learning communities for faculty and administrators.

He is a past president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM) and coauthor of several best-selling mathematics textbooks over several decades. He also has served on writing commissions for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and has authored numerous articles and chapters on school leadership and development for education publications since 2006.

Dr. Kanold received the prestigious international 2010 Damen Award for outstanding contributions to the leadership field of education from Loyola University Chicago, 1986 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, and 1994 Outstanding Administrator Award (from the Illinois State Board of Education). He serves as an adjunct faculty member for the graduate school at Loyola University Chicago.

Dr. Kanold earned a bachelors degree in education and a masters degree in mathematics from Illinois State University. He also completed a masters degree in educational administration at the University of Illinois and received a doctorate in educational leadership and counseling psychology from Loyola University Chicago.

To learn more about Timothy D. Kanolds professional work, visit his blog, Turning Vision Into Action (www.turningvisionintoaction.today).

To book Timothy D. Kanold for professional development, contact .

PREFACE

Why I Wrote HEART!

I remember the moment like it was yesterdayJuly 17, 2002, 10:03 a.m. I was in my office interviewing a candidate for our director of instructional technology position. Usually a high-energy kind of guy, I was trying hard to listen to his responses to my interview questions, but I could not focus. And, I had been superintendent for all of sixteen days.

I knew something was very wrong.

It was hard to breathe, and my chest felt like it was going to constrict and collapse, like someone was sitting on top of me. I quickly finished the interview, quietly slipped out of my office, and drove to the local hospital. I called no one. Why panic?

Within ten minutes of entering the emergency room, I was on an operating table, and a few hours later had two coronary artery stents inserted near my heart, eliminating two severe blockages. According to the cardiologist, I was a month or two away from a full-blown heart attack.

And I had no idea.

I was reasonably young at the time. And you have to wonder, how did it come to that? What had caused me to not take better care of my heart? Or, how could I be so clueless about the actual condition of my heart?

Worse yet, it was mostly my fault. After years of playing baseball and softball, running marathons, and doing the types of eat, move, sleep behaviors that are good for the heart, I had drifted through a decade of actions and behaviors that gradually ate away at my heart health.

I justified that decade of course, like we all do. I was going back to school to work on an advanced degree; I was coaching my children in their sports; and my high-pressure work as an educator and author demanded more and more of my time. I had moved further out in the suburbs for more affordable housing and extended my daily drive to twenty-six miles one way each day. I ate mostly fast food, often in the car, and even worseI had no time left for much exercise. I sat. A lot.

And then July 17, 2002, happened to me. My heart had had enough. It called me out. It was tired of the damage I was doing to myself. And, although it took five years to get it completely right, it is fifteen years later as I write this book, and I am still learning how to keep my healthier heartevery day, each day, one day at a time.

So, why tell you this story?

Soon enough, I realized my personal heart experience served as a metaphor for my work life as well. How well did I really understand my own heart for teaching and leading? Were the contributing elements of my work life gradually inspiring or destroying me and my colleagues, my students, and the school culture we were trying to build?

After all, our heart is at the center of our personal and professional lives.

It was in the recovery room at the hospital (and the subsequent next five years of often difficult follow-up procedures) that my desire to write this book began. More than ever, I realized how fragile life could be. The heart of our classrooms, our school, and our district seems to be the way we should measure our professional journey. Otherwise, why would we choose such a relationally intense profession, a profession that calls for understanding the role our heart plays?