The average principal tenure is four years. The people who work for you spend half of that guessing who you are … and guessing wrong.

There’s one document that fixes it in an afternoon. Most principals never write it.

Before we get into it, here's the five-minute clip from my mentor Eddie Yoon interviewing Clint Carnell. This conversation created this mini-book for you.

Watch it first. Then keep reading.

Everybody Is Lying to You (And They Don’t Even Know It)

Clint Carnell is a CEO who has run several companies.

Recently he said something in a conversation that I haven’t stopped thinking about.

He said: “Everybody is lying to you unintentionally.”

He wasn’t talking about principals. He was talking about being a CEO.

But the second I heard it, I thought about every principal I’ve ever coached.

Because it’s the same job.

Your teachers are kissing up a little 😘 whether they mean to or not.

• Your APs are telling you what they think you want to hear.

• Your office manager is softening the truth about the parent who called three times this week.

• Your secretary is guessing at your mood before she knocks on your door.

Nobody is doing any of this on purpose.

They’re doing it because you’re the boss.

And when you’re the boss, people bend themselves around you (your moods, your tells, your preferences) and they do it from the first day you walked into the building.

Clint said the fix is a document.

A User Manual.

He requires every one of his executives to read his.

And he requires them to write one of their own.

Because the people who work for you cannot do their best work if they have to guess who you are for the first 18 months.

Principals have been told for decades that leadership is about modeling, listening, and being present.

Nobody ever told us the most generous thing we can hand a new teacher is a document that says this is how I actually work.

This mini-book is about that document.

The Cost of Being Unreadable

Principals are the most-watched, least-read leaders in their buildings.

Your staff is running an interpretation of you every single day.

• They’re reading your face in the hallway.

• They’re reading the length of your emails.

• They’re reading how long it took you to respond to a text.

• They’re reading whether you said hi back in the parking lot.

• They’re reading the way you sat in the last faculty meeting.

And most of them are guessing wrong.

Because you’re not being unreadable on purpose.

You’re being unreadable because you’re a human being with a hard job and a limited amount of time, and you cannot narrate yourself every minute of every day.

But the cost of that compounds.

It shows up as a veteran teacher who hasn’t brought you a real problem in two years because the last time she did, she couldn’t tell if you were mad.

It shows up as an AP who started CCing you on every email because he can’t tell which decisions are his to make.

It shows up as a first-year teacher who won’t ask for help because she thinks asking for help looks weak to you.

It shows up as a staff that holds its breath when you walk in.

Not because you’re scary.

Because they haven’t figured you out yet.

And they never will, unless you tell them.

Clint said something else in that same conversation that I want you to sit with:

“Usually, whether it’s counseling or a therapist, or you go through one of those group sessions — everybody already knew. But nobody talked about it. So it created the dysfunctionality.”

Your team already knows your worst habits. Your team already knows your tells. Your team already knows what lights you up and what shuts you down.

They just don’t talk about it.

That’s the dysfunction.

A User Manual takes the dysfunction out from under the rug and puts it on the table.

Where it can actually get better.

The User Manual: A Selfmentor Artifact

Here’s the move that matters.

A Ruckus Maker writes a User Manual. A Play-It-Safe Principal lets their team guess.

That’s the fork in the road.

Writing a User Manual is Selfmentorship.

It’s not an HR exercise.

It’s not a personality test.

It’s not an onboarding packet your district handed you.

Credit where it's due — I learned to think this way from my business mentors at Category Pirates. Their work on category design is the lens I use to see the difference between a Ruckus Maker and a Play-It-Safe Principal. The Clint quotes I've been sharing? They come from this episode of theirs. Listen if you want the deeper version. It will change how you think about leadership and category in the same afternoon.

Category Pirates

Win The Customer's Customer: How Clint Carnell Became CEO Six Times By Designing What's In Bounds

Welcome to Creator Capitalist Conversations, a series spotlighting Category Designers who have rejected traditional career paths and built lives around what makes them different…

Listen now

4 months ago · 12 likes · 1 comment · Category Pirates 🏴‍☠️

Back to your User Manual — and the work only you can do.

It’s you doing the hard work of naming who you are:

• your scoreboard

• your tells

• your non-negotiables

• your worst characteristics

And handing it to your team before they have to guess.

A Selfmentor can write one.

A Play-It-Safe Principal can’t.

Because a Play-It-Safe Principal is waiting.

Waiting for the district to define the role. Waiting for the superintendent to tell them what a win looks like. Waiting for someone else to do the work of naming them.

A Selfmentor does that work themselves.

And here’s the part that takes the most guts:

“You think I’m giving you this because I’m proud of it? There’s things in there that are super embarrassing. When I read through it, I kind of cringe.”

—Clint Carnell

That’s the Ruckus Maker move.

Not false humility.

Not a résumé in disguise.

Real stuff.

The things the people who know you best would say are your worst characteristics — written down, on paper, handed to your team.

Because when you name your own dysfunction before anyone else has to, you take its power away.

It stops being a whisper in the staff lounge.

It starts being a conversation you can actually have.

That is what Selfmentorship looks like in the wild.

Why Most Principals Won’t Do This

I want to be honest with you.

Most principals who read this mini-book will nod their heads, agree with everything, and never write the document.

So let’s talk about why.

Reason 1: It feels arrogant.

Who am I to hand my team a document about me? Isn’t leadership supposed to be about them?

Here’s the reframe: the User Manual isn’t for you. It’s for them.

Clint tells his executives this directly: “It’s not for me. It’s for you. And it’s for us.”

Every minute your team spends guessing at you is a minute they’re not teaching, not leading, not building. The User Manual is the most generous thing you can hand them. It gives them their time back.

Reason 2: It feels too vulnerable.

Naming your worst characteristics on paper? In writing? Where people can go back and read it?

That fear is real.

And that fear is exactly why you have to do it.

Because if you won’t name your dysfunction, your team will (just not to your face).

Writing it down doesn’t create the vulnerability. The vulnerability already exists. You’re just the only one pretending it doesn’t.

Reason 3: I’ll be held to what I write.

Good. That’s the point.

If you write “I want you to bring me the problem with a proposed solution” and then you shut someone down the next time they do it — your team can hold you to your own words.

That’s not a threat. That’s accountability. And accountability is how leaders get better.

Reason 4: I don’t know myself well enough to write one.

This is the most honest reason. And it’s the one that actually proves you need to.

If you can’t articulate your tells, your scoreboard, and your non-negotiables on paper, your team is trying to articulate them for you every day. They’re just doing it worse than you could.

The User Manual is a mirror.

If the mirror is blank, that’s the problem.

Not the exercise.

The Eight Parts of Your User Manual

Here are the eight sections. Write them in your own voice. Keep it short! A User Manual longer than three pages won’t get read. Aim for one page if you can.

1. Who I Am, In One Line.

Not your title. Not your résumé. One sentence that tells a new teacher what kind of leader they’re walking into. Clint’s version: “I’m a full-contact CEO.” Yours might be: “I’m a builder, not a manager.” Or: “I lead from the field, not the office.” One line. Do the work to find yours.

2. What I’m Actually Responsible For.

Name your real job. Not the job description. The strategic job. Clint says his is strategy — everything else gets pushed back on his team. What’s yours? For most principals it’s some version of: “I’m responsible for the direction of this campus and the development of our people. Everything else we delegate, automate, or kill.” Put it in writing. Your team will stop bringing you things that aren’t yours.

3. How I Measure Success.

The scoreboard. What are the three to five things that tell you the year went well? Not the state report card — the real scoreboard. Student engagement. Teacher retention. Families who would send their other kids here. The things that actually matter to you. When your team knows the scoreboard, they stop playing the wrong game.

4. How I Give Feedback (And How I Want It Back).

On-the-field coach, or once-a-year review? Real time, or scheduled? In the meeting, or in private? Can someone push back? Can they get to a NO? Can they get to a HELL NO? This section is where most User Manuals get soft. Don’t let yours. If you’re a kind-conflict leader, say it. If you expect your APs to disagree with you in the room, say it. If you go to the mat on things you believe in, say it.

5. What My Tells Mean (And What They Don’t).

This is the gold section.

If I get quiet in a meeting, I’m thinking, not angry.

If I start asking a lot of questions, that’s when I’m concerned.

If I’m short in email, it’s because I’m short on time — not short on respect.

If my door is closed, I’m writing, not avoiding.

Every leader has tells their team misreads. Name yours. Name what they mean. Name what they don’t mean. This one section alone will save your culture.

6. My Worst Characteristics.

The people who know you best already know these.

Impatient. Interrupts. Plays favorites early. Says yes too fast. Hates small talk. Takes forever to respond to texts. Gets quiet when I’m frustrated instead of saying it. Whatever yours are.

Write three to five. Honestly. The ones that would make you cringe if your team read them out loud.

That’s the point.

Clint said it: “If you don’t do it, if you’re not honest, people already know it.”

Put it on the page. Take the power out of it.

7. My Non-Negotiables.

The HELL NO line.

What doesn’t get re-debated on your campus.

What will always have your protection.

What ends a working relationship.

These aren’t Sticky Core Values for the school — those are the rules of the campus.

These are your personal rules. The things you won’t bend on. “I won’t speak poorly about a colleague in front of a student.” “I will always protect a teacher in a parent meeting before I hear the other side in private.” “I don’t negotiate on our core values, even when it costs us.”

Three to five. Clear. Direct.

8. What I Need From You.

Flip it.

The User Manual isn’t just “how to survive me.”

It’s: here’s what I actually need from you if we’re going to build something great together.

Bring me the problem with a proposed solution.

Don’t surprise me with board-level news.

Disagree with me in the room, not in the parking lot.

Tell me the truth, even when it costs you something.

Whatever yours are. Three to five.

Your team will build the version of you they can see.

Write the one you want them to read.

Your Next Move

Most of this mini-book is describing something you already knew was true.

Your team is guessing at you. You knew that.

They’re getting it wrong half the time. You knew that too.

The fix is a document. You probably knew that.

What you haven’t done yet is sit down and write it.

Here’s what I’d do this weekend.

Block 90 minutes. Somewhere quiet. Coffee shop, back porch, kitchen table after the kids are asleep.

Draft all eight sections. One page. Imperfect on purpose.

Hand the draft to one person you trust — an AP, a coach, a mentor, a spouse — and ask them: what’s missing? what’s wrong? what’s true but embarrassing?

Revise.

Then share it with your full team at the next staff meeting.

The meeting itself will shift the culture. Because you’ve done something no principal they’ve ever worked for has done.

You’ve told them who you are.

The Halloween Party

It’s Halloween 2001.

I’m at a party hosted by my colleague Ms. Sneed — a fellow language arts teacher and, I would come to learn, a legendary southern host.

I’m a Yankee. Fresh out of Illinois. I took a job in Georgia partly because I was sick of the cold, partly because of two spring breaks at Panama City and New Orleans that convinced me the South was where I needed to be. I’m an outsider who’s been welcomed in, and I’m grateful for it.

The party is everything. Music. Jello shots. Shrek and Harry Potter and Freddie Krueger. A Statue of Liberty — patriotism still running high two months after September 11th.

And then there’s me.

Hoodie. T-shirt. Jeans.

Not a costume. My weekend outfit.

Here’s why: My best friend Casey won the coin toss for our shared Super Chicken costume — a yellow chicken suit with red underpants and a red cape that absolutely killed at parties. He went to a different Halloween party. I went to Ms. Sneed’s. No costume.

So I did what any slightly creative 22-year-old would do.

I printed 1,000 business cards. One side: Kokopelli — Halloween 2001. The other side: You’ve been pranked.

For the rest of the night, I moved through every room of that house. Cards in the couch cushions. Cards in the CD cases. Cards in the medicine cabinet, between the cotton balls, inside the aspirin bottles. Cards between every plate in the kitchen, in every glass, possibly in the food inside the fridge.

Once the cards were gone, I had one last beer and went home.

Mid-December. Last day before Christmas break. I stopped by Ms. Sneed’s classroom to wish her a Merry Christmas — and she was dying with laughter when I walked in.

“Danny,” she said. “We’re still finding your cards.”

Two months later. Fifty-fifty: frustrating and hilarious.

Nobody remembered what anybody else wore that Halloween. I can guarantee that. But Ms. Sneed — who I’m told is still hosting those legendary Halloween bashes — probably still tells the story of Kokopelli and the cards.

When you lean into your different, you have a much bigger impact.

That’s what I wanted to talk about.

Why School Marketing Is Ineffective and Forgettable.

I spent time doing recruitment and admissions at a top-10 school in Chicago. Highly selective. Great outcomes. The kind of place you’d be proud to say you worked.

And when I went to recruitment fairs, I was excited. We had a strong story to tell.

But when I looked around the room — at our table, at everybody else’s table — we looked identical. Same setup. Same talking points. Same energy. Same pitch.

Here’s our school ranking. Here’s what we offer. Please consider us.

We were trying to fit in when we should have been trying to stand out.

Later, as a middle school principal in Houston, I watched the same thing play out in hiring. The candidates who got the highest marks from our panel all dressed the same, went to the same university, had the same kinds of experiences. No appetite for risk. No room for someone who came to the table differently.

I found it incredibly frustrating.

Here’s the thing most school leaders won’t say out loud:

The average job posting could belong to any school in the country. Swap the name at the top, and nobody would notice.

Rigorous curriculum. Collaborative culture. Student-centered learning. Passionate, dedicated team.

Every single school says this.

And the problem isn’t that it’s untrue. The problem is that it’s not yours.

When your marketing sounds like everyone else’s, you attract everyone — and no one in particular. You get applicants who are shopping. Families who are comparing. You get the people who will go wherever the commute is shortest or the salary is highest, because you’ve given them nothing else to decide on.

The best teachers, the best families, the best students — they’re not looking for a school that checks boxes. They’re looking for a school that stands for something. A school that’s clearly, unapologetically, for people like them.

And they will drive past three other schools to find it.

The question is whether they’ll find yours.

Category Design Is Not Branding

A lot of school leaders hear “stand out more” and think: new logo. Better website. More social media posts.

That’s branding. And it’s not what I’m talking about.

Category design is a different idea entirely.

It comes from the business world — from thinkers like Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon — but the principle translates directly to schools. Category design says: don’t compete for the same position everyone else is fighting for. Create a new position. Name what’s broken. Build the thing that solves it. Then make sure everyone knows you’re the only one doing it.

In school terms: stop trying to be the best school. Be the only school that does what you do, the way you do it.

I have a friend named Loren. He’s a principal of an arts integration elementary school in Washington, DC. He called me once from a recruitment fair — bored, discouraged, not getting any traction. As we talked, it became clear what was happening: he was showing up exactly like everyone else. Table. Banner. Brochure. Talking points.

I asked him: What makes your school different?

He knew immediately. Arts integration. Every subject taught through and alongside the arts. Not as an elective. As the curriculum. Not something other schools aspire to do — the absolute focal point of everything.

I told him: that’s your whole presentation. That’s the headline. That’s the thing that makes a certain kind of teacher stop walking, turn around, and come back to your table.

By his next recruitment fair, he had a line.

He also plays violin. Loves a bow tie. Has learned to be open about his family, his hobbies, the things that make him him. Three or four years in, his staff started wearing bow ties too — not mockingly. As a kind of tribute. A signal that they’d found their people.

That’s category design. When your school has a clear enough identity that the right people self-select in — and the wrong people self-select out.

The Four Moves

Category design isn’t magic. It’s a set of choices. Most schools never make them — not because they can’t, but because nobody ever asked them to.

Here are the four moves that change everything.

Move 1: Get Clear on Your Legendary Outcome

Not your test scores. Not your college acceptance rate. Not your graduation numbers.

Your legendary outcome is the transformation your school produces that couldn’t happen anywhere else.

What happens to a kid — or a teacher — after three years with you that couldn’t happen at the school down the street? What do your families say when they describe why they stayed? What do your teachers tell their friends when they explain why they drive past three other schools to come to work?

This is the question most schools can’t answer. And it’s the most important one.

One of the leaders in a session I ran recently — Ted, an executive director of a charter school — had the answer sitting in his data and didn’t know it. He’d added a question to his staff’s intent-to-return form: Why are you staying — and what would you tell a future employee?

He had a library of authentic, specific, emotionally honest responses. Teachers describing the moment they realized this school was different. Stories about trust, autonomy, belonging, purpose.

He wasn’t using any of it prominently.

That’s your legendary outcome, hiding in plain sight. Find it. Name it. Lead with it.

Move 2: Lean Into Your Different

Your school has something no other school has. It might be a program, a philosophy, a practice, a design — or it might just be you.

Loren plays violin. Loves bow ties. Built a school around arts integration so deep and intentional that the arts aren’t an add-on — they’re the architecture. He stopped hiding any of that and started leading with all of it.

Here’s the test: If you removed your school’s name from your marketing and replaced it with a competitor’s, would anything break?

If the answer is no — if the copy still works — you’ve failed the test.

Great positioning is non-transferable. Your different is the raw material. Amplify it. Repeat it. Build your whole recruitment message around it.

The fear, usually, is: What if being different repels some people?

That’s the point.

A $4 sheep’s milk yogurt popsicle repels the person who wanted a 78-cent ice pop from the freezer aisle. And it attracts exactly the right person — the one who gets it, who wanted this, who tells their friends.

You don’t need every teacher. You need the right ones.

Move 3: Make Your Core Values Sticky

Integrity. Excellence. Respect.

Nobody believes this anymore. Not because the words are wrong — because they could be posted in any school in the country. Values that belong to everyone belong to no one.

Sticky values are specific. They’re lived, not laminated. They have stories behind them — specific moments, real examples, things that happened at your school that nobody could have scripted. They’re a little polarizing. The right person reads them and feels recognized. The wrong person reads them and quietly decides this isn’t the place for them.

Both outcomes are wins.

Ask yourself: Can your staff name your values without looking at the wall? Can they tell you what those values look like in action on your specific campus? Can they give you an example from last week?

If the answer is no, you don’t have core values. You have a poster.

Move 4: Reject the Premise

Most school marketing starts from the same premise: We want to be everything to everyone who might possibly choose us.

The application pool is shrinking. The teacher shortage is real. The pressure to fill seats and positions is intense. So the instinct is to cast the widest net possible — soften the edges, remove anything that might push someone away, keep the message broad enough that nobody feels excluded.

This is exactly backwards.

The school that says we’re not for everyone, and that’s the point fills its seats with the right people. The school that says here’s the specific problem we’re solving, and here’s why traditional schools haven’t solved it attracts the teacher who’s been waiting for exactly that.

Fall in love with the problem.

Don’t fall in love with your solution. Don’t lead with how great your school is. Lead with what’s broken about the status quo — name the frustration that the right candidate already carries — and then show them that you’ve built the answer.

You know what’s wrong with most schools. So do we. Here’s what we built instead.

That’s not a threat. It’s a signal. It tells the right person they’ve found their people.

The Brevard Academy Teardown

Ted is the executive director of Brevard Academy, a charter school. During a live session, he pulled up his school’s employment page and asked for feedback.

Here’s what I saw:

A headline that said Join Our Team. A logo. A paragraph about the school. Nine things listed below the fold. A button to apply.

It’s not bad. A lot of schools would be happy with this page.

But here’s the coaching:

The headline is talking to itself.

Join Our Team — they’re already on the employment page. They know why they’re there. You’ve used your most valuable real estate to say something they already know. That space belongs to your legendary outcome, your point of view, your most compelling reason why.

The good stuff is buried.

Ted had a list of nine things that made his school different from traditional schools. It was specific, honest, and compelling. It was below the fold — after the logo, after the boilerplate, after the reader had already scrolled past their attention span. Lead with it. Make it big. Make it bold.

The social proof is invisible.

Ted’s intent-to-return form had given him a library of authentic teacher quotes. Real people. Real reasons. Real transformation. None of it was on the page. It should be front and center — not as a testimonials sidebar, but as the emotional core of why someone would choose this school.

The framing is school-centric.

Almost everything on the page was about Brevard Academy. What a reader wants to know is: What happens to me if I come here? What will I be able to do that I can’t do anywhere else? How will my life be different?

Flip the frame. Don’t talk about your school. Talk to the teacher you want to hire.

(read that line again — 99% of leaders in K12 do not understand this!)

Ted had one more insight during that session — one that I think is the whole idea in miniature. He said: “I’m going to go talk to the teachers we hired from traditional schools last year. The ones who said, ‘I can’t believe a place like this exists.’ And I’m going to ask them to tell me more about that.”

That’s the marketing.

The teachers who said I can’t believe a place like this exists.

• They have the story you need to tell.

• They crossed over from the status quo.

• They can describe what they left and what they found.

• They can speak directly to the candidate who is still stuck in a school that isn’t this.

Let them.

Your Turn

Answer this:

Why would a great teacher drive past three other schools to work at yours?

Not a good teacher. A great one. The one who has options. The one who knows what they want and won’t settle for less.

If your answer sounds generic — if it could describe any school in your zip code — you’re not done yet.

The schools that win the talent war aren’t the best-resourced. They’re the most unapologetically themselves. They’ve done the work to name what they stand for, who they’re for, and why the status quo isn’t good enough.

That work doesn’t require a new logo or a bigger budget.

It requires a clear point of view.

You already have one. Most leaders do. They’ve just been trained to hide it — to sand down the edges, to fit in, to not make waves.

This is your permission to stop.

Make a ruckus. Lead with your different. Build the school that the right teacher has been looking for — and then make sure they can find it.

This audiobook…

Read more

He’s a veteran elementary principal at a high-performing campus. The kind of leader who got into this work because he genuinely likes people — collaborative, inclusive, deliberate. Strong on climate. Strong on relationships. The teachers like him. The parents like him.

But the staff survey just landed, and one piece of feedback was eating at him.

“Communication follow-through.”

It pissed him off, honestly. Because in his mind, half the emails his staff sent him were stupid.

Things he shouldn’t be dealing with. Things someone else should handle. So he didn’t respond.

And usually, when he didn’t respond, the issue resolved itself.

But there it was on the survey, in black and white. Communication follow-through. And the teachers were mad about it.

He came into the call calling it “low-hanging fruit.” Forty minutes later, we’d uncovered something much bigger.

What he’d already tried

Honestly? Not much.

His default was to ignore. To wait for the fire to extinguish itself. And to a degree, this was working — but only for him. The cost was hidden. The staff wasn’t reading his silence as discernment. They were reading it as he’s ignoring us.

He’d already tried being collaborative.

He was the inclusive principal who divides up the work, who runs reading committees and math committees with parent reps and community members. Strong instinct. But somewhere along the way, his key leaders had started feeling burned out. And they were quietly blaming him for it.

So now he had two perceptions to reckon with:

• a staff who thought he didn’t follow through

• and a leadership team who thought he wasn’t carrying his weight.

Both perceptions were wrong. And both perceptions were also real.

The coaching conversation

The first move was to name what he was actually doing.

He wasn’t ignoring. He was triaging — making (mostly correct) judgment calls about what deserved his attention. The problem wasn’t the triage. The problem was that no one could see it.

The question that shifted things:

“What if the issue isn’t whether you respond — but whether they can see your reasoning?”

He sat with that.

Then we built three tools.

Each one solves the same underlying problem in a different way: making the invisible visible.

The first is what I call the Generous No — a way to decline a request while still pointing the person toward three other paths to a solution. Not silence. Not “that’s not my job.” Something in between that respects the person and protects the principal’s time.

The second is bigger. It’s a document I’d been teaching to a different cohort of principals the week before, and it’s the single most useful artifact a school leader can build heading into next year. I call it the Principal User Manual.

Eight sections. Distributed to your leadership team (and ideally to your whole staff) at the start of the year. Re-read quarterly. The point isn’t compliance. The point is clarity. When everyone knows how you operate, what you’re actually responsible for, and what you need from them, half the friction in the building disappears before it starts.

The third tool was about discipline data. He’d inherited the same complaint every principal in America hears: our kids are so bad. And like most principals, he’d been fighting that perception with reassurance instead of data.

There’s a better way. I’ll show you what one principal did with one teacher and one spreadsheet that ended a years-long discipline problem in a single meeting.

The insights

Silence is a message — but not the one you think you’re sending. When you don’t respond to a request, you think you’re communicating this isn’t worth my time. Your staff hears I don’t matter to him. The fix isn’t to start answering every stupid email. The fix is to make your reasoning visible so people stop guessing.

Your real job isn’t your job description. Most principals couldn’t tell you in one sentence what they’re actually responsible for. Their staff couldn’t either, and that’s the source of half their frustration. The strategic job and the job description are different documents. Until you write down the strategic one and hand it to your team, every email is a potential collision.

Collaboration without clarity creates burnout, not buy-in. You can be the most inclusive principal in the district and still have a leadership team that quietly resents you. Why? Because you delegated the work without naming the role. People who know they’re executing your vision can carry weight for years. People who think they’re doing your job will burn out in months.

Make the invisible visible. This was the line my coachee landed on at the end of the call, and he was right. Discipline data, decision-making, expectations, your scoreboard for the year — all of it should be visible to the people you lead. Most principal problems aren’t problems of effort. They’re problems of fog.

If this landed for you, here is a question to sit with …

What’s one thing your staff thinks about you that’s almost true — but wrong in the way that matters most?

That question is worth noodling on.

If you want to think it through with a thought partner trained on a decade of school leadership coaching — Digital Danny is there.

Start Chatting with Digital Danny

You’ve been reading about Selfmentorship.

This is the chance to practice it.

On Thursday, April 30th at 7 to 8pm ET, I’m running the first-ever Selfmentorship Sprint. A live 1-hour session where you stop reading about what it looks like to drive your own development and start doing it.

Our agenda:

• The Selfmentorship framework

• I model a live Digital Danny session

• You work on something real

• Debrief and wins

$100 for the Selfmentorship sprint. 30 days of Digital Danny access included.

That means you walk out with a thought partner trained on a decade of school leadership coaching conversations— available at 11pm before the hardest conversation of your week, available Sunday afternoon when you’re thinking through next month, available any time you need to work something through and your coach isn’t on the clock.

Play-It-Safe Principals accept 4 coaching sessions a year. They schedule them, wait for them, and manage in between.

Ruckus Makers don’t accept that.

The Selfmentorship Sprint is for the principal who has been reading this and nodding — and is ready to do the work, not just think about it.

Register today

See you Thursday.

Danny

This…

Read more

She’s a high school principal in her second year at a school that, on paper, has everything going for it.

National rankings. Strong AP scores. State recognition for college readiness. The week of this coaching call, she’d hosted the state Secretary of Education in her building to celebrate a counseling team that helped students land on-the-spot scholarships.

By Wednesday morning, she was spiraling.

The Situation

The district had handed her an impossible scheduling timeline.

Eight positions to cut. Teaching assignments due before approvals were even finalized. Her counselors sitting in a room, drawing conclusions she couldn’t officially confirm. She was side-texting her supervisor, managing the room with careful half-information, and watching her stress climb in real time.

She almost rescheduled the coaching call.

Instead, she paused. Asked herself where she could have the most impact right now — not next week, not in the next meeting, but in the next ten minutes. She walked the building. Checked room temperatures. Connected with teachers sweating through a heat spike. Small thing. Real thing. She walked back to her office feeling like herself again.

She kept the call.

The Real Work

The scheduling chaos wasn’t what she needed to talk about. What was underneath it was bigger.

For months, she’d been working with her Instructional Leadership Team on a vision reset. The school had carried the same core values for ten years — three words that mapped neatly onto the school’s initials. Tidy. Forgettable. The kind of values that could belong to a naval base or a Fortune 500 or a middle school two states away.

Her team knew it. She knew it.

So they did the work: sticky notes, honest questions, real conversation.

• What must be true about this school in three to five years?

• What do we want students to experience every day?

• What are we unwilling to compromise on?

She mentioned, almost in passing, that she’d developed those questions with Digital Danny — her Selfmentorship guide trained on a decade of school leadership frameworks. Not generic prompts. The kind of questions that cut through to the real work.

They filled the wall with words. Opportunity. Engagement. Responsibility. Empathy. Global awareness. Self-reflection.

Then she fed it all into ChatGPT.

The output was exactly what you’d expect. A long, technically correct, utterly hollow paragraph. Rigorous. Purposeful. Globally minded. Safe, inclusive, responsible. Every word true. None of it theirs.

Read more

Read more

Three school leaders. One AP stepping toward the principalship. One principal in year four, rebuilding from the ground up. One veteran closing out a 20-year career and asking how to finish strong.

Different stages. Same underlying question.

Who am I as a leader — and have I made that clear enough to the people I lead?

The Situation

The AP was sharp, curious, hungry. He’d just picked up a summer school principal role, his first crack at the chair. He came with the right instincts: don’t take in too much at once, learn from people who’ve made the mistakes, figure out the potholes before you hit them.

But the deeper question surfacing wasn’t about logistics.

It was about identity.

The principal in year four said it plainly. She’d come into a situation where a beloved predecessor had been the entire system. When the predecessor left, a faction of the staff made it their quiet mission to see the new principal fail. Two years of second-guessing. Two years of leading from doubt.

I’ve been leading from a place of fear.

And then — almost as a confessional — she said the thing that connected all three conversations:

If you don’t define who you are, your staff will define it for you. And it’s never how you want them to.

What They’d Already Tried

The AP was building relationships intentionally. Handwritten notes, $5 Starbucks cards, genuine recognition. Not transactional. Just deposits in accounts he knew he’d eventually need to draw from.

The year-four principal had been planting seeds. She quietly invited a core group to a conference on conscious discipline, never announcing it publicly. Word spread. Eighteen staff members signed up. Nearly a third of her teaching staff, and she hadn’t sent a single email.

Both were doing things right. But neither had fully named their leadership identity. Not out loud. Not on purpose.

The Coaching Conversation

The question that shifted things for the AP:

Read more

Read more

Top 3 Musical Artists

1. Kendrick Lamar

2. Bon Iver

3. Bad Bunny

Top 3 TV series:

1. Slow Horses

2. Paradise

3. The Residence

Top 3 YouTube Channels:

1. Conan O’Brien

2. Mike Birbiglia

3. My First Million

Top 3 Comics:

1. Daredevil

2. Something is Killing the Children

3. Batman

Top 3 Non Fiction Books:

1. Storyworthy

2. 48 Laws of Power

3. This is Strategy

Top 3 Business investments:

1. Working with Matt Dicks

2. Speaking on more stages and taking risks

3. Upgraded computer (Macbook Pro M5 + Studio Display)

Top 3 Personal Investments:

1. Started an IRL intro to improv 6-week class

2. Joined a new gym: health is the best yet

3. Working with a therapist

Top 3 Experiences:

1. The Moth

2. Improv

3. Plymouth, MA with Miriam / MSAA Keynote

Your turn, I’d love to hear what made your TOP 3 of 2025 list for you.

Keep Making a Ruckus,

Danny

👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

• Digital Danny → Your 24-7 AI-powered leadership coach trained on 4M words of content and ten years of coaching experience.

You can learn more about this premium newsletter here.

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You think keeping the peace means avoiding the hard conversation.

Wrong.

Every time you dodge that difficult talk with the teacher who’s undermining you, or that AP who never follows through, or that parent who bulldozes boundaries...

You’re not keeping peace.

You’re compounding problems.

Here’s what actually happens:

Read more

👋 Welcome to a 🔓 free edition 🔓 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive…

Read more

👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

• Digital Danny → Your 24-7 AI-powered leadership coach trained on 4M words of content and ten years of coaching experience.

You can learn more about this premium newsletter here.

Subscribe now

I was on a coaching call last week with a school leader who’d just made a huge transition.

Elementary to middle school. New principal. New team. And for the first time in years, they were finally working with people who wanted to lead.

They told me about their assistant principal – a genuinely nice person who’d been at the school for five years. The kind of colleague you actually enjoy working with.

But there was a problem.

Simple tasks that should take minutes were becoming recurring problems. Like sending a school-wide message through their communication system. The AP didn’t know how to do it. After five years.

So this leader did what most of us do ...

They walked the AP through it step-by-step. Showed them every click. Made sure the message went out. Problem solved, right?

Not quite.

Because halfway through explaining this to me, they paused and said something that hit hard:

“I know that you have to do it a few times. I’m not sure what would have made him not come to me again.”

That’s when I knew we’d found the real issue.

The Hidden Cost of Being Helpful

Here’s what nobody tells you about being a supportive leader: Your helpfulness can accidentally create dependency.

Every time you solve a problem for someone, you’re making a trade. You’re trading your time now for... more of your time later.

Because here’s the thing – if they don’t truly own the solution, they’ll be back. And back again. And again.

Meanwhile, you’re wondering why you can’t focus on the strategic work that actually moves your school forward.

You’re not building capacity in your team. You’re building a queue at your door.

The Two-Tool Fix

The solution? It’s embarrassingly simple, but most leaders never implement it.

Read more

👋 Welcome to a 🔓 free edition 🔓

of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

💡 Premium subscribers get access to custom GPTs, full archives, advanced tools, and Digital Danny — your AI-powered coach. Upgrade here.

Subscribe now

🎯 The Ruckus Report

Quick take:

What if the most disruptive thing you could do as a school leader isn’t another program — but rethinking when school starts? In this candid and funny conversation, Danny Bauer and Mitch Weathers dig into how protecting sleep actually protects learning, how parent boundaries preserve teacher sanity, and why even job postings reveal whether we’re truly Doing School Different or just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

🤝 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Mitch Weathers is a veteran educator, author, and founder of Organized Binder, a system that helps schools build executive functioning and academic success for every student. He’s spent decades teaching and coaching educators on how structure, sleep, and small shifts create massive change. Mitch is known for turning everyday challenges — like communication overload or bell schedules — into opportunities for innovation and calm confidence in the classroom.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

In this episode, Danny and Mitch challenge the old-school thinking that keeps leaders exhausted, students disengaged, and parents emailing at 2 am.

💡 Key Insight #1: The Sleep Revolution Starts at School

• What’s broken: Early start times and late-night device use rob students (and teachers) of rest, and learning suffers.

• The shift: Ruckus Makers reimagine schedules to protect sleep, boost attention, and honor the science of rest.

• Impact: Districts that start high school later see stronger academic outcomes, better moods, and fewer discipline issues.

💡 Key Insight #2: Boundaries Are the New Professional Development

• What’s broken: Teachers feel pressured to respond instantly to parent emails — even the ones that hit inboxes at 2 am.

• The shift: Clear, community-wide communication norms create psychological safety for staff and preserve trust with families.

• Impact: When schools set and model boundaries, teachers stay longer, burnout decreases, and parent relationships improve.

💡 Key Insight #3: Hiring Isn’t HR — It’s Leadership Marketing

• What’s broken: Bland job postings and checkbox hiring processes repel the best talent.

• The shift: Treat every open position like a story about your culture — highlight your vision, values, and what makes your campus unmissable.

• Impact: Schools that “market their mission” attract stronger candidates, reduce vacancies, and build a team aligned with their purpose.

💬 Quotable Ruckus

“If the most disruptive thing you do this year is let your students (and teachers) sleep — you’re already Doing School Different.”

— Mitch Weathers

🧩 Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to turn these insights into action? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Ask your leadership team, “What’s one low-effort way we could protect rest for students and staff?”

• This Month: Draft and publish clear communication norms between teachers and families.

• This Semester: Reevaluate your bell schedule and hiring language. Does it reflect a traditional system — or a Do School Different mindset?

💌 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here 🔗 Join us on the Adorable Red Hats show. Write an email to hello@adorableredhats.com with your pitch.

Learn more at adorableredhats.com.

📌 Ruckus Makers Don’t Just Listen — They Act

If education ain’t a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn’t about doing school better.

It’s about Doing School Different — and joining a movement of bold, creative leaders reimagining what’s possible.

🧠 Here are four ways we can help you on your Do School Different journey:

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter — Tools, mindset shifts, and leadership strategies that actually work: ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Maker Media — Exclusive essays, AI prompts, and early book access: ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club — Our private network, workshops, and leadership tools: ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind — Weekly coaching and peer mentorship for visionary leaders: betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind

🎙 Today’s RUCKUS cast in Partnership With:

ODP Business Solutions®

Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments. Visit odpbusiness.com/education and let’s Do School Different.

IXL

Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it empowers them to make better decisions with reliable data and adapts instruction based on student performance. Get started today at ixl.com/leaders.

Play Piper

Kids love gaming and tech — but often disengage from math and science at school. Play Piper changes that with hands-on STEM kits and a coding curriculum. Learn more at playpiper.com.

Twelve Practices LLC © 2025 | If Education Ain’t a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?

👋 Welcome to a 🔓 free edition 🔓

of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

💡 Premium subscribers get access to custom GPTs, full archives, advanced tools, and Digital Danny — your AI-powered coach. Upgrade here.

Subscribe now

🎯 The Ruckus Report

Quick take: What if you could deliver six weeks of learning in a single hour? Simon Strong did exactly that — and the results are challenging everything we think we know about teaching, memory, and curriculum.

🤝 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Simon Strong is the founder of Download Learning, a UK-based company partnering with schools and organizations to dramatically accelerate learning by sequencing information to align with how the brain actually works.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

🧠 Key Insight #1: Speed doesn’t kill learning — distraction does.

• What’s broken: Slow, disjointed lessons overloaded with irrelevant detail.

• The shift: Simon’s team scripts, edits, and delivers content at 220 words per minute — nearly double classroom pace — to keep attention and trigger retention.

• Impact: Students retain foundational knowledge more effectively, especially those with ADHD or learning differences.

🧠 Key Insight #2: One hour, one-half term (seriously).

• What’s broken: Teachers covering complex topics in 6-week units with minimal retention.

• The shift: A single high-impact video lesson designed to fire synapses in precise time intervals.

• Impact: One hour of Simon’s approach produced equivalent learning outcomes to an entire half term of traditional instruction. Add teacher support, and outcomes doubled.

🧠 Key Insight #3: Flipping modes ≠ mastery.

• What’s broken: Constantly switching between direct instruction, stories, and activities in class.

• The shift: Presenting one “mode” at a time to avoid cognitive overload.

• Impact: Improved comprehension, less classroom disruption, and deeper long-term understanding.

💬 Quotable Ruckus

“Education doesn’t build character — it reveals it. Our job is to help students discover who they are and become the best version of themselves.”

– Simon Strong

🚀 Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implement these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Audit your next lesson for unnecessary mode-switching. Stick with one mode longer.

• This Month: Try introducing a complex topic through a story, not a slide deck.

• This Semester: Partner with a colleague to design a one-hour “burst” lesson using Simon’s three-mode model.

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here.

🔗 Learn more about Simon’s work:

https://downloadlearning.co.uk

• 🌐 Website

• 🔗 LinkedIn

• 📄 Peer-Reviewed Research

📌 Ruckus Makers Don’t Just Listen — They Act

If education ain’t a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn’t about doing school better.

It’s about Do School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what’s possible.

🧠 Here are four ways we can help you on your Do School Different journey:

• 📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter – Tools, mindset shifts, and strategies that actually work (3x a week).

• 🗞 Read Ruckus Makers – Exclusive content on Substack featuring leadership insights, AI prompts, and new books before the bookshelf.

• 💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club – Our private network + workshops, The Automatic School tools, and AI Prompt Library.

• 🧨 Apply to the Mastermind – Weekly coaching, peer mentorship, and our proven Ruckus Maker Flywheel™.

• Every tool, community, and coaching program we offer is built to help visionary school leaders play the new game — one where leadership is creative, tech-enabled, and unapologetically student-centered.

The podcast is your starting point. The movement is just getting started.

🎙 Today’s RUCKUScast in Partnership With:

ODP Business Solutions®

• Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments. 🔍 Learn more: odpbusiness.com/education

IXL

• Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it empowers educators with real-time data and adaptive instruction. 🔍 Learn more: ixl.com/leaders

PLAY PIPER

• Play Piper bridges gaming and STEM with hands-on kits that turn curiosity into confidence — and students into makers. 🔍 Learn more: playpiper.com

Twelve Practices LLC © 2025 | If Education Ain’t a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?

👋 Welcome to a 🔓 free edition 🔓 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

💡Premium subscribers get access to custom GPTs, full archives, advanced tools, and Digital Danny — your AI-powered coach. Upgrade here.

Subscribe now

The Ruckus Report

Quick take: If you’re facing pushback on your bold school vision, this episode is your playbook for flipping critics into raving fans. Learn how one principal shifted the narrative — and built massive community support in the process.

Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Dr. Christopher Jones is a high school principal, leadership author, and host of the Seeing to Lead podcast. He helps educators shift from surviving to thriving by encouraging reflection, connection, and vision — even in the most resistant environments.

Breaking Down the Old Rules 🔨

Key Insight #1

• What’s broken: Too many leaders are paralyzed by fear of resistance — especially from staff or community stakeholders.

• The shift: Chris started by listening deeply and showing people how they could lead without a title.

• Impact: Staff ownership grew, and culture shifted — not because mandates were handed down, but because people bought in.

Key Insight #2

• What’s broken: Traditional admin mindsets treat critics as threats rather than assets.

• The shift: Chris chose curiosity over combat, asking questions like: “What do you want to see happen?”

• Impact: Open conversations turned former critics into trusted allies who now champion his leadership publicly.

Key Insight #3

• What’s broken: Schools often ignore how powerful public perception is in building momentum.

• The shift: Chris proactively told positive stories and empowered his community to tell them too.

• Impact: The narrative shifted from doubt to celebration — with the superintendent, school board, and staff all on board.

Quotable Ruckus

“Your loudest critics might just be your most loyal supporters — if you give them the chance to lead.”

– Dr. Christopher Jones

Your Do School Different Challenge

• Tomorrow: Ask one critic what success would look like in their eyes. Listen without defense.

• This Month: Invite that person into a decision-making process — not to agree with you, but to shape the future together.

• This Semester: Create a system where feedback becomes fuel, not friction. Turn your toughest room into your greatest asset.

Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here.

🔗 His Books:

• 📘 SEEing to Lead

• 📗 Isabella and the Storm

• 📕 Isabella’s Unexpected Gift

📌 Ruckus Makers Don’t Just Listen — They Act

If education ain’t a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn’t about doing school better.

It’s about Doing School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what’s possible.

🧠 Here are four ways we can help you on your Do School Different journey

📬 Subscribe to the Free Newsletter – 3x/week leadership mindset shifts and tools that work: ruckusmakers.news

🗞 Read Ruckus Makers – Premium content on Substack with early access to new books, AI prompts, and more: ruckusmakers.media

💥 Join The Ruckus Maker Club – Private community, The Automatic School™ tools, and more: ruckusmakers.club

🧨 Apply to the Mastermind – Weekly coaching + The Ruckus Maker Flywheel leadership system: Apply Now

❤️ Today’s show is sponsored by:

For over 30 years, ODP Business Solutions® has helped schools transform from whiteboards to smartboards. Why? Because when you get the right tools, everyone wins. Visit odpbusiness.com/education to revolutionize your school’s learning spaces.

Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, it helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and it adapts instruction based on student performance.

Get started today at ixl.com/leaders

👋 Welcome to a 🔓 free edition 🔓 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

💡Premium subscribers get access to custom GPTs, full archives, advanced tools, and Digital Danny — your AI-powered coach. Upgrade here.

Subscribe now

🧨 The Ruckus Report

Quick take:

What if everything you believed about math education was wrong? In this episode, Ted Dintersmith, bestselling author of Aftermath and What School Could Be, pulls back the curtain on how math has been weaponized — and how school leaders can transform learning by teaching the math that actually matters.

🎓 Meet Your Fellow Ruckus Maker

Ted Dintersmith is a bestselling author, education advocate, and former venture capitalist who believes traditional math education has failed our students. In Aftermath, he unveils the life-changing, real-world math skills students deserve to learn.

🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules

🎯 Key Insight #1: Real Math Skills Are Ignored in School

• What’s broken: We spend billions teaching rote math no adult uses.

• The shift: Teach students estimation, decision-making, game theory, and data literacy.

• Impact: Students gain tools to make sense of the world — and avoid being replaced by AI.

🎯 Key Insight #2: Standardized Testing Drives Irrelevance

• What’s broken: Tests reward regurgitation over reasoning.

• The shift: Focus on deep thinking and real-life application instead of the “one right answer.”

• Impact: Students build critical thinking and communication skills that machines can’t replicate.

🎯 Key Insight #3: Career-Based Learning Isn’t “Less Than”

• What’s broken: Schools track kids into college or label them “less than” if they pursue trades.

• The shift: Elevate career-based learning, internships, and real-world skills for all students.

• Impact: Confidence, agency, and community impact — plus real jobs post-graduation.

💬 Quotable Ruckus

“The math that really matters in life does not have one right answer.” – Ted Dintersmith

🚀 Your Do School Different Challenge

Ready to implment these ideas? Start here:

• Tomorrow: Audit your math curriculum. Are you teaching skills students will actually use?

• This Month: Host a screening of Multiple Choice and start a community conversation on real-world learning.

• This Semester: Design or pilot a learning experience rooted in data literacy, estimation, or decision-making.

🔗 Connect & Continue

🎯 Get the full episode transcript here

🔗 Follow Ted: teddintersmith.com

🎬 multiplechoicefilm.com

📌 Ruckus Makers Don’t Just Listen — They Act

If education ain’t a bit disruptive, then what are your students really learning?

This show isn’t about doing school better.

It’s about Do School Different — and joining a growing movement of bold, creative school leaders who reject legacy models and reimagine what’s possible.

🧠 4 Ways to Do School Different

• 📬 Newsletter — Do School Different 3x/week: ruckusmakers.news

• 📖 Substack — Exclusive content, AI prompts, and book sneak peeks: ruckusmakers.media

• 💥 The Club — Network, AI tools, and workshops: ruckusmakers.club

• 🧨 The Mastermind — Coaching and the Ruckus Maker Flywheel: Apply Now

Every tool, community, and coaching program we offer is built to help visionary school leaders play the new game — one where leadership is creative, tech-enabled, and unapologetically student-centered.

The podcast is your starting point. The movement is just getting started.

🎙 Today’s RUCKUS cast in Partnership With:

ODP Business Solutions®

• Looking to create the kind of campus experience students never forget? ODP Business Solutions® transforms ordinary spaces into extraordinary learning environments. 🔍 Learn more: odpbusiness.com/education

IXL

• Over 1 million teachers rely on IXL because it is empowering, helps them make better decisions with reliable data, and adapts instruction based on student performance. 🔍 Get started: ixl.com/leaders

PLAY PIPER

• Kids love gaming and computers, but are disengaged from math and science at school. Play Piper changes that with hands-on STEM kits and a coding curriculum. 🔍 Learn more: playpiper.com

Twelve Practices LLC © 2025 | If Education Ain’t a Bit Disruptive, Then What Are Your Students Learning?

👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

• Digital Danny → Your 24-7 AI-powered leadership coach trained on 4M words of content and ten years of coaching experience.

You can learn more about this premium newsletter here.

Subscribe now

Chapter 39 —The Launch

There’s a kind of tired only educators know.

Not just body-tired — soul-tired.

The kind that comes from ten months of giving, adjusting, lifting others up, holding the pieces together.

Jordan expected to see that kind of exhaustion as she stepped into the media center for the post–spring break staff meeting. She even built in extra margin — shorter agenda, more celebration, less initiative talk.

But the moment she walked in, she froze.

Laughter.

Actual laughter.

Groups of teachers leaned over tables, animated. Not slumped in chairs, not checking watches. Talking. Smiling. Energized.

“This is … different,” Jordan whispered, almost without meaning to.

Andre caught it. “You feel that too?”

She nodded slowly. “Usually this time of year feels like dragging a piano uphill. This year… it’s like someone opened the windows.”

They started the meeting with student stories. Maria’s advisory team had just hosted a student-led planning day — gathering feedback for what next year’s pods could look like.

They called it: The Launch.

And they wanted to share their pitch.

The team stood confidently at the front — Maria, Jamal, Mia, and three others Jordan had watched come out of their shells this year. One slide showed a vision statement the students had co-written:

“A school where every kid knows their voice matters — and every adult listens like it’s true.”

Applause broke out. Some teachers even stood.

Jordan scanned the room, the faces of people who had once rolled their eyes at change now leaning forward, scribbling notes, inspired.

She hadn’t planned for this. She didn’t organize it. She didn’t approve it.

She just got out of the way.

Read more

👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of Ruckus Makers — the newsletter for bold school leaders who Do School Different. Each week we drop fresh content across our signature styles:

• The Reframe → Mindset shifts in 90-seconds.

• Dot AI → Supercharged leadership prompts and custom gpts

• MEH → The Onion meets Education. What could go wrong?

• First in Line → Exclusive access to content before the bookshelf.

• The Automatic School → A system that moves you FROM bottleneck TO breakthrough

• The Hot Seat → Coaching calls turned into case studies

• Digital Danny → Your 24-7 AI-powered leadership coach trained on 4M words of content and ten years of coaching experience.

You can learn more about this premium newsletter here.

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You spent three days in a conference room.

Stakeholder voices. Sticky notes. A facilitator who cost more than your copier budget.

The result? A beautiful vision statement that now lives on your website, your email signature, and that poster by the main office that nobody reads.

But what if your vision statement is a liar?

Not because the words are wrong. But because words without operational clarity don’t create change — they create cynicism.

The Old Way (That Doesn’t Work)

Districts believe that if they can just nail the language, the transformation will follow. So they workshop phrases like “innovative learning community” and “prepare students for an ever-changing world” until everyone agrees.

Then they go back to their campuses and ... nothing changes.

Teachers still teach the same way. Leaders still manage the same crises. Students still experience the same school.

The vision becomes wallpaper. Inspiring, maybe. But invisible.

Why This Happens

Vision without systems is just aspiration.

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