What role does empathy play in your success as a school leader? A principal's skills, knowledge, and experience are important when it comes to leading schools. But whether interacting with staff, students, or parents, principals also need empathy-a key social-emotional skill-to be effective and drive continuous improvement. In this book, veteran school leader Thomas R. Hoerr makes the case for why schools need a Chief Empathy Officer as principal and how to become one. Discover how to grow your own empathy, as well as that of others, and the enormous positive effect this can have on your school. Explore how to view differences of opinion as opportunities to learn. And learn how empathy can help you: Build strong relationships with and among staff members; Better connect with students' parents; Reduce conflict by eliminating problems before they get out of hand; Model and pursue the crucial issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion; Improve instructional leadership. Hoerr includes self-assessment and feedback tools, strategies for incorporating empathy schoolwide, and lively anecdotes that will walk you through the do's and don'ts of empathic leadership. If you're interested in taking your leadership skills up a notch (or two or three), The Principal as Chief Empathy Officer is for you!

What's the secret to making schoolwide SEL work? Growing numbers of people recognize that social-emotional learning (SEL) is central to a well-rounded education and to success in life outside and beyond the school building. What's missing is the know-how and framework for weaving SEL into the fabric of the school. In this highly practical and eminently readable book, Thomas R. Hoerr shows teachers, administrators, and other school staff how to integrate the Formative Five success skills (empathy, integrity, self-control, embracing diversity, and grit) with school culture essentials by answering these questions: 1. How can you ensure that your school or district is helping students develop their SEL skills across disciplines? Address your values, vision, mission. 2. What effective programs and activities support student development of SEL skills at the classroom, school, and district levels? Consider your practices. 3. How can you leverage personal relationships within the school and in the community to cultivate students' appreciation of how the differences among us make us stronger? Involve your people. 4. How can you weave an SEL narrative into your school's culture? Live your narrative. 5. What can you do to establish and nurture a welcoming school environment as you strive to enhance students' SEL skills? Embrace your place. Replete with real-life examples from the author's years as a school leader, relevant findings from the research, and helpful strategies for use at all levels and with all K-12 populations, Taking Social-Emotional Learning Schoolwide is the ultimate blueprint for making sure students and staff are equipped to thrive.

For success in school and life, students need more than proficiency in academic subjects and good scores on tests; those goals should form the floor, not the ceiling, of their education. To truly thrive, students need to develop attributes that aren't typically measured on standardized tests. In this lively, engaging book by veteran school leader Thomas R. Hoerr, educators will learn how to foster the "Formative Five" success skills that today's students need, including: Empathy: learning to see the world through others' perspectives. Self-control: cultivating the abilities to focus and delay self-gratification. Integrity: recognizing right from wrong and practicing ethical behavior. Embracing diversity: recognizing and appreciating human differences. Grit: persevering in the face of challenge. When educators engage students in understanding and developing these five skills, they change mindsets and raise expectations for student learning. As an added benefit, they see significant improvements in school and classroom culture. With specific suggestions and strategies, The Formative Five will help teachers, principals, and anyone else who has a stake in education prepare their students-and themselves-for a future in which the only constant will be change.

Today's teens face intense pressures-academically, socially, and personally. In order to succeed in today's fast-paced world, teens require perseverance, tenacity, resilience, self-control, and the ability to fail well. Based in the latest psychology research, this is the first workbook written directly to teens to help them develop "grit," a trait that embodies stamina, a growth mindset, and competence for success. When the going gets tough, it's time to get gritty. Written by a clinical-child and school psychologist and based in the latest research, The Grit Guide for Teens will help you build perseverance, resilience, self-control, and stamina. As a teen, setting and reaching goals is an important part of growing up. Whether you want to do well in school, get into a good college, make friends, excel in sports, or master the fine arts or music-you know you need to persevere in order to succeed. You've probably heard the term "grit" at school or from your parents, but what does it really mean? Made popular by Angela Duckworth in her New York Times bestseller, the term "grit," embodies all the characteristics that help people accomplish the things they want, such as self-control, tenacity, and the ability to fail well. Using the skills outlined in this book, you'll develop both grit and a growth mind-set-a way of thinking that focuses on improvement and hard work in order to achieve any goal you set for yourself. You'll learn how to make grit an everyday habit, turn disappointments into opportunities, embrace challenges, manage stress, and be the very best version of you that you can be. Studies show that grit isn't something you have to be born with-it can be taught and learned! This book will give you everything you need to get gritty, open your mind to all life's possibilities, and succeed in everything you do.

Howard Gardner's groundbreaking theory applied for classroom use

This important book offers a practical guide to understanding how Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) can be used in the classroom. Gardner identified eight different types of intelligence: linguistic, logical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. "Celebrating Every Learner" describes the characteristics of each type of intelligence and follows up with ready-to-use lesson plans and activities that teachers can use to incorporate MI in their pre-K through 6 classrooms. Offers a treasury of easily implemented activities for engaging all students' multiple intelligences, from the New City School, a leading elementary school at the forefront of MI educationProvides ready-to-use lesson plans that teachers can use to incorporate MI in any elementary classroomIncludes valuable essays on how and why to integrate MI in the classroomHoerr is the author of a bi-monthly column for "Educational Leadership" as well as the editor of the "Intelligence Connections" e-newsletter

For too long, educators have focused only on getting students ready for the next test, for the next grade, for graduation, or maybe for college. Students must be prepared to succeed in school, and they must know how to read, write, and calculate. But that's only the beginning. Educators' jobs - whether they teach kindergarten, primary, middle, secodary school or lead a school or district - is to prepare students for success in the real world. To do so, we must also teach grit. Grit is a combination of tenacity and perseverance - a willingness to take risks even if it means sometimes failing and starting again. Knowing how to respond to frustration and failure is essential whether a student struggles or excels. Veteran school leader and popular Educational Leadership columnist Thomas R. Hoerr shows what teaching for grit looks like and provides a sample lesson plan and self-assessments, along with a six-step process applicable across grade levels and content areas to help students build skills they need to succeed in school and in life.

From the Foreword by Howard Gardner: In this invaluable book, Tom Hoerr relates a decade's worth of MI experiences at St. Louis' New City School. We learn about the staff's initial exposure to MI theory, the many activities (some more successful than others) that were undertaken by faculty and staff in teaching, curriculum, adult development, and assessment; the challenges that the leader faces in attempting to bring about significant and lasting change. Especially compelling are the continuing efforts to develop the personal intelligences during a period when issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and standards loom so large. Hoerr underscores the centrality of collegiality, the problems posed by transient students and faculty, the complementary role played by public exhibitions and standardized test scores, the role of friends in determining the activities (and intelligences) favored by children, the delicate line between support and challenge that the leader must walk, the tension between excellence and perfection. I value the concrete examples, as well as the ties to important conceptual work, such as that undertaken by Roland Barth on collegiality, Peter Salovey on emotional intelligence, and Peter Senge on the learning organization. Achieving excellence has always been a process. Hoerr makes it abundantly clear that the effort to use MI ideas effectively must remain on the agenda. Still, I can testify that, over a 10-year period, clear, palpable, impressive progress can be made. We can improve schools significantly, but only if we take the long view and do not settle for patchwork fixes. Thomas R. Hoerr is director of the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri. Under Hoerr's leadership, the faculty began implementing the theory of multiple intelligences in 1988.