Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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The Flawed Leader
For the past 15 years, I have developed and grown an afterschool program model from its infancy serving 20 kids in a church to serving over 600 kids across three cities, demonstrating incredible success rates. By all means I have been deemed as a visionary, strong, competent leader. Each year as we get larger and stronger, the pressure mounts as the praise continues, and the expectations build. However, what most people on the outside looking in don’t see is with all the ambition, the drive fo...Read More
Keep The Channel Open
I’ve been sitting in contemplation of this quote by dancer/choreographer Martha Graham for a few weeks now: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with...Read More
Afterschool Programs: Expanding the Definition of Success
As a father of two girls ages 7 and 10, married to an amazing educator of over 20 years, I have a 360-degree perspective of the teaching and learning experience. As a matter of fact, my 4th grade daughter is my wife’s student. It’s a complete family affair. Most people I share that with have an initial reaction of concern. The most common questions are, “How is that working out for your daughter? Isn’t that weird for her? Does she feel challenged?” All these have me...Read More
BOOST Master Class: Strengths Based Leadership
I’m grateful for the opportunity to host a Master Class on the topic of Strengths Based Leadership on Wednesday, April 19th from 2:30-4:30 pm during the BOOST Conference. In nearly 20 years of learning from and working for Gallup, I can’t think of a more exciting and impactful topic to share with conference attendees this spring. Gallup research proves that people succeed when they focus on what they do best. Each person has natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that ca...Read More
Tending You
What does personal development have to do with professional development? I’ve had many people ask me some version of this question. In other words, why bother working on myself? I should spend my time working on my job skills, my staff, my responsibilities, my “stuff.” And, okay, I get that. Tending to others, as I’ve pointed out, gives me a purr for sure. But here’s the thing that I’ve come to realize (slowly and begrudgingly and after being repeatedly put in...Read More
Growth Mindset: Losing is the New Winning
Spending more than half of my life in and out of a locker room, one gets very used to sound of competition. Sayings like, “failure is not an option” and “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” were common echoes in my upbringing. From one coach to the next, it was always about winning, getting better, playing your best, minimizing mistakes, practice makes perfect, etc., etc. It’s no wonder that I wanted to quit after losing my first soccer game ...Read More
A Journey of Self-Discovery
The students in our programs come from diverse backgrounds and face unique challenges in navigating the world they are growing up in. It is a privilege to be their guide in this journey called life. Many of the students we have in our programs are having experiences that may be similar to the staff working in our programs. The true challenge is being able to create an environment that supports the staff and students to feel emotionally and physically safe and not just survive but thrive in spite...Read More
Magical Leadership
The past few weeks have been very fun and proud for me, as this baby of mine, this pet project, this seed of an idea that was planted more than three years ago, finally saw the sunlight. The interactive journal—the book born out of a weekly blog that I write—On Wings & Whimsy: Thoughts on Finding the Extraordinary Within the Ordinary—was published as the first product of The Leadership Program for 2017. It’s a journal designed for personal reflection and development, rooted in stories ...Read More
“Essence” of Leadership
If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to win. — Paul “Bear” Bryant People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou There is something in our organization we call the Essence of Leadership. To us Essence is the spirit of the quintessential leader. Our mission at Children’s Choice is to pro...Read More
My Why: Curly’s Law – A Bearer of Hope
I love the scene in the movie City Slickers where Billy Crystal’s character, Mitch, is riding alone with Curly, played by Jack Palance. Curly gives Mitch some advice about life. Curly: You know what the secret of life is? Mitch: No. What? Curly: [holds up one finger] This. Mitch: Your finger? Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean s**t. Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing? Curly: That’s what you gotta figure out....Read More
We Shouldn’t Fear Our Leaders: 3 Reminders for the Next Generation
The changes are becoming apparent. The transition is here. Individuals who once ran programs at a site level are now in positions of leadership at a state level. This is the moment that we have waited for with much anticipation and excitement. This is the conversation that we have had late into the night at several BOOST conferences. So it is in this moment that I remind myself that leadership at its core is about character. I’m reminded of a quote from President Abraham Lincoln, “Ne...Read More
Improving as a Leader = Improving as a Person
To be a truly good LEADER, one must espouse the following sorts of traits and behaviors: Listen well Speak judiciously Approach others with humility Laugh often (especially at yourself) Treat others with empathy Remain calm and thoughtful in the midst of stress Be mindful of personal health so as to remain valuable to others To be a truly good PERSON, one must espouse the following sorts of traits and behaviors: Listen well Speak judiciously Approach others with humility Laugh often (especially...Read More