Episode Details

Happy Friday!

As we come to the end of another busy and productive week, I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for the dedication and hard work of our teachers, staff, and students. Every effort we make is in pursuit of our district performance targets, ensuring that we are providing the best possible education for our students while continuously striving for growth and improvement. One of the key elements of this process is learning from experience—especially from mistakes. All of the positive accomplishments noted at the end of this Wrap-up were precluded by a long series of mistakes but the determination and expertise of teachers and coaches is what led to the results.

Lessons From Mistakes

Have you ever noticed that there is no true opposite of the word mistake? We can call something correct, successful, or accurate, but none of those words really mean the opposite of making an error. A mistake is something we can point to, something we recognize the moment it happens or in the clarity of hindsight. But what do we call the choice that leads to the best outcome?

Maybe there is no word for it because the results of our choices—especially in education—are never fully known at the moment. Every lesson plan, every instructional strategy, and every classroom decision is made with the best information available at the time. We do not have the luxury of certainty. We only have the opportunity to act, reflect, and refine.

One of the most encouraging things I have seen in our classroom observation data is that our teachers are actively trying new things. We are experimenting with strategies to increase student engagement, adjusting our instructional approaches, and refining our methods to better align with what we now know about learning. This is exactly what we should be doing. Growth does not come from standing still. It comes from testing, learning, and adjusting.

I know firsthand how nerve-wracking it can be to step outside of a routine and try something unfamiliar. I remember when I introduced collaborative learning as a new instructional approach. In the beginning, I thought I had made a mistake but I persisted and adjusted with a new strategy—I was open with my students telling them that I was experimenting with different ways to help them learn better. That transparency had a psychological impact—rather than resisting the change, my students seemed more willing to cooperate. They recognized that we were in this learning process together, and instead of skepticism, they approached the new strategy with curiosity and patience.

At first, there were moments of uncertainty, both for them and for me and it never became perfect. But as each day passed, we all became more confident in the approach. Students became more engaged in discussions, more willing to help each other, and more comfortable sharing their thoughts. I, too, gained confidence as I saw the benefits unfold in real-time. What started as an experiment turned into a meaningful shift in how we worked together in the classroom.

Mistakes made in the service of our mission and vision are not failures—they are part of the process. When we try something with the intention of helping students grow, and it does not go as planned, we do not abandon the effort. We adjust. We learn. We become wiser. That is what we ask of our students—to take risks, to persist, and to learn from missteps. We should be asking the same thing from ourselves knowing that with no true antonym for “mistake”, correctness is more of a spectrum of results.

The leadership our classrooms need is not about perfection—it is about presence, reflection, and resilience. It is about making the best decision we can in the moment, with the understanding that we will continue to learn alongside our