“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in coveralls and looks like work.”

Thomas Edison

Over 35 years in education at every level from Kindergarten through college.

1998 Wyoming Principal of the Year

19 years ad Principal

Served as Wyoming President Elect, President and Coordinator

1999-2001 Chairman, Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board

Represents Region IV on the NASSP Board of Directors

Served on the NASSP Finance and Audit Committee

Is currently serving on the NASSP Steering Committee

Having served as the Principal of my school for 19 years, I made the decision last year to ease up a bit to, perhaps, create more time in my day and my mind to serve WASSP and NASSP.  My time on the Steering Committee takes me away from my office a bit more and I felt I couldn’t do justice to both my school and NASSP while doing what a Principal has to do every day.  I visited with my boss and my Board of Trustees and slid over into the Assistant Principal role.  I have found I am in classrooms more and focused on teaching and learning with time to read, share, talk and model.

Metaphorically speaking, someone else can drive the wagon, while I feed the horses.  Which brings me to the photo on the right.  The Oregon Trail goes by just south of my community and we have some of the most well defined ruts remaining today.  I have, more than once, gone out on a particularly rough day at school and hung my legs over the edge and thought about what a rough day might have meant for the folks leaving those tracks.

The Platform

    As I began my candidacy a year ago, I hope I demonstrated some of my communication abilities.  I also hope I framed the major foundation of my platform which is just that, communication.  We as school administrators, our state organizations and NASSP need to listen and communicate with everyone in our schools and organizations.  While face to face conversation remains the preferred method, our digital world is changing at such a rate that we must, as leaders, adapt to many different avenues to communicate.  NASSP is making great strides in this effort and, if elected, it would be a focus point in my work.

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt coined the phrase, “bold, persistent experimentation,” in a graduation speech at Oglethorpe University on May 22, 1932.  He also spoke of colleges and universities producing far more teachers than schools could ever employ at that time.  Don’t we wish.  Anyway, bold persistent experimentation, combined with reflection  and evaluation is something we must embed in our thinking.  We know so much more about our craft than we did even ten years ago.  We have more data about our school, our students and at the NASSP level, our members.  We must be bold and persistent as we experiment and learn.  We must be willing to ask the simple question, “Why have we always done it that way?” and respond, not with justifications and rationalizations, but with reflection, thought and consideration, that maybe, just maybe, knowing everything we now know, there might be a better way.

    If you haven’t already read, Disrupting Class, by Christensen, Horn and Johnson, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, by Gelb and Innovate Like Edison, by Gelb and Caldicott, head for your favorite book store or download them to your Kindle and join me on a great adventure in 2010 and beyond.

kgriffith@plt2.k12.wy.us

I certainly want to hear from you.  Any questions, concerns, ideas or thoughts you want to share, I am at your service.  I would be more than happy to invite you to my WIKI, principalstimulusplan where conversations and ideas can flourish around the Principalship and NASSP.  You can certainly find Ken Griffith on Facebook as another avenue of conversation and if you run into teachken on Second Life, you have found me.  Also, I am kgriffith2 on Skype if you want a face to face..

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“...bold, persistent experimentation...”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Courage, hard work, self-mastery and intelligent effort are essential to successful life.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Come with me on into the 21st century