This is a book that our middle school vice principal Margot Parker asked our parents to read and led a book group discussion on it. It explores the idea that in this digital age, students are often hyper-consumed with themselves. I am reminded of that classic YouTube video of the college girls at the professional […]

I read this book at the recommendation of some friends in the District. It’s a book of fiction about the life of an Australian refugee in India. It gives amazing insight into the slum life in India, some of the political and international battles being fought in India, and life overall in India. It is […]

This is a great cookbook from my favorite cooking magazine people – Cooks Illustrated. They always explain the science behind why a recipe works and show what they tried and what they did not try. This is such a great book that it is now my go-to wedding/house warming gift for young people just starting […]

I am always on a quest for better fitness. I know that if I let up, I will get big. When I was a principal, my PTA president Carolyn would see me leaving the pool in the morning and say, “Stay on it. No fat principals.” Nice. This is a book that talks about the […]

Our summer trip this year will be a bicycling trip to Nova Scotia in eastern Canada. We take big biking trips every other year with a close group of friends from our neighborhood. It’s five couples who enjoy riding around the country. We’ve ridden in Vermont, New Hampshire, the Finger Lakes of New York, the […]

This is another book from the good people at America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated. So I do a heck of a lot of outdoor cooking. I even built a new outdoor kitchen this year which is something I’ve been wanting for a long, long time. It features my barbecue grill and my Big Green Egg smoker/grill. […]

Schmoker’s original book, simply called Focus, remains one of my favorite educational books of all time. Schmoker’s point remains the same: schools need to narrow their focus on what they are trying to do. His three major pushes are for schools to have a coherent curriculum, have sound lessons, and teach literacy. In other words, […]

This is a New York Times Bestseller book about a lawyer in San Francisco who grew up in the self-described hillbilly lifestyle in the Appalachian Mountains. My dad recommended it to me and he was right! It’s a great reminder of how cultures can stymie us into not wanting anything beyond what we have. It […]

Grit is the story about how we often are quick to praise students for their natural ability. We don’t as often praise students for the hard work that it takes to be successful. Grit gives example after example of how successful people in our world today may certainly be impacted by their level of natural […]

Here’s another golf book that deals very little with technique. Nothing about backswing, follow-through, speed of the swing or any of those things. It is just about mindset, focus, and attitude. Having that concentration it takes to do a job well and then enjoying the rest of the time with whomever you are playing with. […]

I started playing golf when my older son was seven years old. He wanted to play so I started playing with him. He was beating me by the time he was 12, and we still love playing together. It’s a fantastic game that takes way too much time but I don’t know anything better for […]

I read this book as I prepared for our trip to Cambodia in December of 2017. I had been trying to get our family to go to Cambodia for three years now. My brother-in-law has been the British Ambassador to Cambodia since 2014. He and his family have been inviting us over to visit them […]

This year I shadowed one of our junior students at Mira Costa High School. Click here to read my blog entry. One of our big topics here is trying to improve the social emotional wellness of our students, and one of the ways we tried to gain more understanding was to shadow students for a […]