In a new article, author Justin Reich, a learning scientist and professor at MIT, outlines a compelling argument for why schools should – at least for now – do less. Our tendency in schools is to address challenges of all kinds by doing more: adding rules and policies, increasing airtime, and introducing programs or initiatives. But, to succeed, change needs breathing room, and in this moment, educators have no air to spare. To create the conditions in which innovation can succeed, we must practice subtraction. Reich shares real-world examples of, and resources about, subtractive design in schools. He includes the prompting to reduce emails in favor of short phone calls, to remove cumbersome rules to save teachers time and frustration in asking students to remove their hats or hoodies, and to dismantle operational silos that cause staff members to duplicate work. He also examines the challenges: stakeholders invested in a program, idea, or process; social dynamics of our schools and their resistance to change; and a sense that any one subtraction is too small to make a difference. Drawing comparisons to gardening, Reich reminds us that pulling a single weed from a garden won't create the conditions for growth, but sustained, small efforts will make a difference. To create fertile soil for innovation in our schools, we can start by subtracting.

Rebecca Pope-Ruark's Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal, is a mixture of memoirs and reflections from women in higher education positions within independent, public, and university settings who speak to the reasons for career burnout in academia and how to combat this phenomenon. The author defines burnout as chronic, unrelenting stress from the workplace that is not handled well. She also addresses three identifying factors: mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion; desensitization of people; and ongoing malaise due to women wondering if what they are accomplishing daily means anything. To successfully combat faculty burnout, and from a personal perspective, Pope-Ruark recommends identifying your purpose, feeling compassion for others, reconnecting to your work, and finding work-life balance. From a leadership perspective, the author notes that administrators need to look at the equalized goals and responsibilities among employees within a group. Other steps could include setting aside ten minutes at the beginning of each faculty meeting to address burnout and offering resources to help combat feelings of being overwhelmed. Pope-Ruark states that all factors of faculty burnout are stress-driven, and workplace culture must be adjusted in most cases for sufficient change to occur.

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Leaders in corporate, government, and not-for-profit organizations are often disappointed in their strategic plans. After committing significant planning effort, they often end up with plans that are too similar to previous ones or that ultimately fail to distinguish their organization from competitors. To address these concerns, Graham Kenny first defines strategic planning as "designing a system whereby the various key stakeholders of an organization interact to produce a virtuous circle that is, in turn, a source of sustainable competitive advantage." Strategic planning, then, becomes a process that involves key stakeholders in continuously evolving understanding of the organization. This allows organizations to remain competitive and provide a value-added experience for their community – and would-be community – members. Kenny helpfully decouples "strategic planning" from an "operational action plan," two categories that are often conflated in traditional school strategic planning processes. In schools, this distinction might look like the relationship between a Portrait of a Graduate (strategic) and the plan that supports teachers as they put pedagogical, curricular, and assessment practices aligned with the Portrait of a Graduate into practice (operational). The three tips Kenny offers will help ensure that "strategy" sits at the core of a school's strategic planning: (1) distinguish between operational and strategic plans; (2) understand strategic plans as dynamic, not static; and, (3) aim for your school community to arrive at new insights about itself. Kenny's clear framing can aid schools in establishing strategic priorities more effectively while enabling strategic planning to become a process that robustly supports what is critical for the forward movement and growth of any school or organization: learning.

In The Matter of Black Living, by critically examining the ideologies, information technologies, and data collection practices employed by the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century to enumerate racial demographics, Autumn Womack exposes the dissonance between black social life and historical racial data. Womack reminds us that data is both iterative and performative, and serves as a tool for knowledge and power. As such, her research of overlooked social surveys, photography, literature, and film challenges the validity of racial data collected between 1880-1930, a time when Black social life and data were asymmetrically and insufficiently cohered and shaped. Womack creates a space to rethink the breadth and depth of the social, cultural, political, and economic experiences in Black and African American communities during the time of Reconstruction and Industrialization. The Matter of Black Living reframes our understanding of diverse Black communities through an aesthetic lens defined by the works of Black artists, writers, and social scientists. Womack's cultural analysis skillfully illuminates the complexities within Black communities and employs art, literature, and social surveys to repeatedly undiscipline the racial data often weaponized against them. In so doing, she may just recalibrate the historical relationship between race and data in the U.S.

While "Against Algebra" appears to be an article about math curricula, it is in fact one of the most compelling and rich transdisciplinary articles about education this year. Temple Grandin observes: "One of the most useless questions you can ask a kid is, What do you want to be when you grow up? The more useful question is: What are you good at? But schools aren't giving kids enough of a chance to find out." She goes on to explore this premise in fascinating ways, worthwhile and generative for any educator. As Grandin discusses students' need for "engagement with real-life projects," she names her own unique perspectives, including those of a professor of animal science, a visual thinker who has autism, and a consultant — both recalling her own best learning experiences as a student and reflecting on those of her students now. "Students need more exposure to the way everyday things work and are made," she explains. Without using the words themselves, Grandin makes a philosophical case for project-based learning, tinkering, responsive teaching, differentiation, and the Mastery Transcript. "No two people have the same intelligence, not even identical twins. And yet we persist in testing – and teaching – people in the same way," she writes. This fresh voice on a familiar set of topics will delight and inspire independent school educators, resonating with the unique opportunities and mandates of our school missions and programs.

Considered the father of modern neuroscience, Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramon y Cajal attributes his professional success to a marked lack of genius. Cajal credits his being a slower thinker, and also a higher incidence of making mistakes, as inspiring his creativity, flexibility, and willingness to change his mind. According to the authors of Uncommon Sense Teaching, this is called a "hiker" brain; it may take a student longer to reach the destination, but the journey to an answer is enriching in and of itself. Drs. Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski detail the power of deliberate engagement in one's education as an effective tool for deeper learning and improved recall. The authors highlight the synergy of Hebbian learning, described as "the neurons that fire together near simultaneously in time wire together." In other words, if you can learn it, you can link it. In fact, in doing so, a student may effectively transfer knowledge from working to long-term memory. This book provides an evolutionary exploration into the functionality of our neuroanatomy and advocates for teaching students about how they learn best. An accompanying website provides images integrated throughout the text for use in schools.

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Kristen Chen's newest work prompts us to contemplate the layers and pressures of the model minority myth. Chen juxtaposes two main female characters in ways that challenge our assumptions about education, wealth, race, and motherhood. Ava Wong and Winnie Fang both attend Stanford University. Ava graduates, attends law school, and marries a successful Bay Area surgeon. Winnie Fang, Ava's old roommate, disappears from the university and returns to Ava's life two decades later, carrying the impossibly expensive Hermès Birkin handbag. As their adventure unravels, Winnie and Ava join forces in the counterfeit handbag industry in surprising ways. Chen's work criticizes how we judge one another and shows how appearances rarely match reality. When Winnie Fang states, "All of us fixate on certain kinds of cheating, while willfully ignoring other kinds," we are reminded that in education, as in life, there are few easy, consequential choices. Counterfeit offers a chance to discuss dishonesty, crime, stereotypes, and friendship within the confines of a comical and clever read. Turn to Counterfeit for an engaging and surprising read for your faculty or high school students.

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In this article, Eric Hudson, Chief Program Officer at Global Online Academy, provides the reader with insight into the ways schools are focused on closing "culture gaps" and solidifying their core values and identities. Hudson's experience leading professional learning workshops in 2022 signaled that schools are looking for sustainability and ways to listen more effectively to their communities' needs. Putting belonging at the center, Hudson outlines how schools are approaching this work while reevaluating the five basics of their communities: culture, learning, partnerships, teaching, and leadership. By acknowledging that school culture requires work, where are communities creating space for students and teachers to be seen and heard? Are communities examining whether they are aligned around shared, learner-centered goals? How are schools deepening their ties to their local communities in sustainable ways tethered to learning? In what ways are schools supporting teachers in their professional learning in order to prioritize joy and purpose? What does it look like for school leaders to practice human-centered leadership and model their community's values both implicitly and explicitly?

Given the rollercoaster of the last two years and the burst of energy of the last two months, this article will be instrumental for independent school leaders considering the next iteration of a process, policy, professional development opportunity, unit of curriculum, or reengagement of a constituency. With urgency and intentionality, Hudson sketches a blueprint of where schools should begin again.

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