Becoming a School Principal: Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Paperback - 2015

From the rear cover

In Becoming a School Principal, Sarah E. Fiarman describes her first few years as a school principal committed to enacting a powerful vision of leading and learning. Drawing thoughtfully on the literature of school reform and change leadership, Fiarman engages readers in a lively, frank, and revealing conversation about building the vision and capacity to provide effective instruction for all students and the intensely personal process of learning to lead.

"Sarah's sharp insights both validate my efforts and challenge me to be better - to continue seeking an elusive balance between the humanity, humility, accountability, and urgency required of school leaders today."
--Emily Glasgow, K-8 principal, Portland Public Schools, Oregon

"Sarah writes as she speaks--with compassion, insight, and wisdom. The book is a learning experience for any principal, no matter how experienced."
--Jon Saphier, founder, Research for Better Teaching

"In education we speak a lot about making the implicit explicit. Sarah Fiarman provides a useful road map for creating a community of learners (both students and staff) aimed at positive growth for all."
--Thabiti Brown, principal, Codman Academy Charter Public School, Massachusetts

"Becoming a School Principal is an essential resource not only for new principals but for principals moving to new schools--especially urban schools with racial mixes and achievement challenges. Sarah Fiarman skillfully reflects on her struggles and missteps and specifies the strategies that she adopts to lead her staff into a learning-focused culture that impacts student results."
--Alexander D. Platt, lead author, Skillful Leader Series

Sarah E. Fiarman, a former public school teacher and principal, is a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she teaches instructional leadership for elementary, middle, and high school principals. She is a coauthor of Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning and a contributing author of Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning.

Media reviews

Citations

• Library Journal, 09/15/2015, Page 86