I recently had the pleasure of hearing Joe Sanfelippo speak to a group of educators. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone speak for more than two hours and keep my attention the entire time, yet he somehow managed. I was impressed with his authenticity and passion for the education profession.
Throughout his talk, the theme of telling the stories of our schools kept coming up. Because if we don’t tell those stories, someone else will.
And someone else’s view of our stories isn’t always representative of what we go through on a daily basis.
Anyway, here are my nine favorite quotes from the conference, starting with my favorite. I haven’t added any context or commentary. Instead, I think these speak for themselves.
Feel free to comment with any questions if you have any.
“Everybody is somebody’s kid. It doesn’t matter if they’re 4, 14, 24 or 44. And every kid deserves to be recognized.”
“We (educators) stopped being proud of the work and started defending the work.”
“You don’t honor tradition by keeping things the same. You honor tradition by giving the people who came before something to celebrate.”
“We build culture 30 seconds at a time.”
“You can put the tools in place. But to be successful, you have to have the desire to put in the work.”
“Give yourself license to pull back and think about how to do things differently.”
“Every conversation I have might be the one they remember for the rest of their lives.”
“Data does not drive a movement. The story behind the data drives the movement”
“Moments of awe are happening around us all the time.”
