Peter Brunn's Blog
2 days 1 hour ago
from Peter Brunn
This week the Virginia Association of Elementary School Principals and DSC partnered to put on a mini-conference on leading learing communities. I gave the keynote sessons. Sue Wilder, Isabel McLean, and Linda Rourke did small group sessions, and we had a panel of school leaders close our day by sharing their experiences working with us on lesson...
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1 week 1 day ago
from Peter Brunn
I was on Facebook today and ran across a post by an old friend. I knew once I read it that I needed to share it here. Finnie is somone I have known since we were young soldiers together. He is now a professor at the University of New Mexico, and someone whose thinking I hold in the deepest regard. In his post Finnie writes as a parent who is...
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9 weeks 1 day ago
from Peter Brunn
This has been a crazy week of travel. Last Friday I was in Orlando. From Sunday to Tuesday I was at the Learning Forward Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. Today I am off to talk with folks in the Kansas City area. I, for one, am ready for a holiday break.
Our presentation in Anaheim was a huge success. I had the privilege of presenting with some...
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11 weeks 3 days ago
from Peter Brunn
This is more of a personal note than a blog.
As many of you know, I spend a great deal of the year traveling to schools and districts throughout the country. I am lucky to have the privilege of visiting so many wonderful places and working with some amazing teachers. In the next three weeks alone (including today), I will be working in Las Vegas,...
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11 weeks 6 days ago
from Peter Brunn
I was in Denver this week. As I worked with Teacher Leaders and Teacher Effectiveness Coaches around facilitating lesson study, we ended up spending lots of time thinking about the power of open-ended questions. Our conversation reminded me of some thinking I did in my book, The Lesson Planning Handbook. For this week's blog I...
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13 weeks 1 day ago
from Peter Brunn
It is conference time. Many schools are scheduling meetings with teachers and parents over the next month or so. You may have already had yours. Mine is coming up this week. As teachers and parents, we have a unique perspective on these important conversations.
I have been thinking about this because I know that these conferences can either be...
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15 weeks 1 day ago
from Peter Brunn
Over the past two months I have logged many, many miles across the country to support the schools we work with. Whether I was doing lesson study with districts, supporting the Caring School Community® program, or speaking at a conference, I have noticed a specific kind of thinking creep into the conversation. Below are a couple of examples...
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16 weeks 1 day ago
from Peter Brunn
A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend and her son. He is in 5th grade and his class was reading the classic book The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. Before I get too far into this piece I need to say—I love this book. I used it in my classroom and read it with my daughter. The book, a work of fiction first published in 1944, is a...
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16 weeks 6 days ago
from Peter Brunn
I modeled some writing lessons (from Being a Writer™) yesterday in Louisville, KY. I loved being in the classroom—the students were amazing. I spent the day working with teacher leaders and district literacy resource teachers. As I reflect on the day, one comment from the group still stands out to me. In our debrief of the lesson one...
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18 weeks 2 days ago
from Peter Brunn
Bullying is back in the news. The Internet seems covered with reports of schools' challenges with bullying. My issue with all of this attention is that it paints a murky picture of the problem. We only hear about the extreme examples. Newspapers call our attention to it when a middle school student commits suicide or when an elementary school...
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Peter Brunn is the Director of Professional Development at the non-profit Developmental Studies Center (DSC) in Oakland California. At DSC, Peter leads the organization’s professional development work with schools and districts across the country to support the fostering of student’s academic, social, and ethical development. He often shares this work through keynotes and presentations at local, state, and national conferences including; NCTE, NSDC, and IRA. Prior to coming to DSC, Peter worked as a staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. He began his career teaching elementary school in the Bronx NY. Peter is also the author of the book The Lesson Planning Handbook: Essential Strategies That Inspire Student Thinking and Learning published by Scholastic in January 2010. He currently lives in El Cerrito, CA with his wife and daughter.
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