Episode Details

Hi, Friends. Will Parker here. A quick shout-out to Dr. Jen Schwanke and Dr. Robyn Jackson who agreed to record this special edition of Principal Matters where Jen hosts the show. In this conversation, you’ll find helpful lessons for your leadership as they discuss topics like:

• Reaching 100% of Students
• Principals as “Builders” instead of leaders
• Navigating Leadership as Women
• Confronting the Imposter Syndrome

I heard Robyn Jackson present this summer at the NASSP Ignite Conference, and she has been leading ongoing virtual sessions as part of the Ignite+ series. Her lessons on ‘buildership’ are both motivational and positively provoking as she calls school leaders to a mindset of ‘doing the work of building schools’ rather than just ‘doing the work of leading schools’. 

By the way, each month in the fall of 2023, the National Association of Secondary School Principals is hosting virtual meetings led by Jimmy Casas, Dr. Salome Thomas-El, Dr. Robyn Jackson, Dr. Jen Scwhanke, and me. You can find out more or register at: https://nassp.org/igniteplus

Finally, I want to highlight my favorite quote from today’s interview, when Dr. Jackson says, “I don’t have to be your fantasy of a school leader in order to be transformative in the work I do. Who I am is sufficient.” I hope you find this conversation refreshing and challenging. A big thank you to Dr. Jen Schwanke for hosting this special edition, and to Dr. Robyn Jackson for providing an episode packed with valuable lessons for Principal Matters listeners. As always, thank you for learning together, and thank you for doing what matters! – WDP

PMP Special Edition Highlights:

In this powerful and inspiring episode of Principal Matters, Jen Schwanke speaks with Robyn Jackson, CEO of Mindsteps® Inc. and creator of Buildership® University. “So many administrators are working incredibly hard and trying to eke out small incremental gains,” she says. “What if we could create schools in which every teacher and every administrator truly believed every kid could be successful?” 

That’s the question Robyn first mulled over when she started her career as an educator. At the time, she was a high school English teacher, committed to sustaining rigor while also refusing to let students fail. It was this mindset of believing all her students could be successful in high-level classes that led her out of the classroom to instructional coaching. In that role, she challenged teachers to take risks, think differently about motivation and results, and improve their instructional practices with intention. 

The problem? Many times, these teachers would be met with resistance from administrators who might not be open to their efforts. Robyn started to think she might need to focus her work away from teachers and toward supporting principals—in other words, she wanted to help principals change their mindsets toward a focus on transforming their schools. 

Right about then, Robyn’s supervisors decided they needed more of her. On the day they came to find her, intending to promote her, she quit. The d