Timothy D. Kanold

Timothy D. Kanold, PhD, an award-winning educator, author, and consultant, is former superintendent of Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125, a model professional learning community district in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

View full profile

Searching For My “Awe Family” Response!

Presenter linkTimothy D. Kanold
Post date
Categories: Instruction, Leadership, Pandemic Response and Educational Practices, Solution Tree

Image of heart with blog title

I sense a paradox of competing emotions on the horizon.

On one hand I find joy in the capacity of our positive, generous, and courageous human response to the relentless stress, strain, and change we have faced each day for almost a year now. On the other hand, I feel queasy and uneasy as we close in on the anniversary of the most intense, unexpected and unwelcome change to our personal and professional lives as educators. March 2020 seems so long ago, and yet it sticks so close to, and lives inside of, our very being as teachers.

Read more

1Comment tail

Good Enough, For Now

Presenter linkTimothy D. Kanold
Post date
Categories: Pandemic Response and Educational Practices

This entry is the second in a blog series called Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP), which aims to highlight and further the important work educators are doing amid the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. The first post, written by Jeremy Adams, can be found here.

Based on HEART! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader

The disruption to our professional and personal lives by the COVID-19 virus is staggering. Close to 51 million preK–12 children in the United States are not attending school, as an abrupt halt to the 2019–20 school year occurred sometime around our normally scheduled spring breaks. 

Somewhere in the midst of this devastating pandemic, the only experience in our lives that became certain was uncertainty. And grief. And fear. And stress. And isolation. March, April, and May 2020 will be forever etched in our memories. 

Where is the hope?, we wonder. 

To understand our hope amid this time of uncertainty is to understand our basic sense of humanity.  Read more

Kindness Amidst the Anger Storm

Kindness Amidst the Anger Storm

Presenter linkTimothy D. Kanold
Post date
Categories: Instruction, School Improvement

Based on HEART! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader

“Anger is not impressive or tough—it’s a mistake. It’s weakness. Depending on what you are doing, it might even be a trap that someone laid for you.” —Ryan Holiday

During the fall of my second year as superintendent at Stevenson HSD 125 (birthplace of the PLC At Work® process), I picked up the phone, only to be verbally assaulted by a very angry parent about an issue regarding her son, who was not receiving the resolution she sought.

I listened for about three minutes and tried to deescalate her anger, but it only got worse. Despite my best intentions to understand her concerns, she mostly just wanted to vent, but her yelling and the cruelty of her words got in the way of her message. Sound familiar? Read more

Rebecca DuFour at work with educators

2Comment tail

The “Now What?” Of Life: Celebrating Rebecca DuFour

Presenter linkTimothy D. Kanold
Post date
Categories: PLC, Solution Tree

It was one of those wonderful mid-fall afternoons as I walked to my car, crossing the quad of the university campus. Tree colors were just starting to appear, and the air had that rare “higher temperatures than normal with crispness” smell.

I took off my suit jacket as I approached the car with this intense feeling I had done this very act of taking off my suit jacket and getting into my car, many times before. I had this awareness too that those moments had always left me feeling a bit empty. It was a feeling similar to the one you sense right after spending hours with friends and family, saying goodbye, going on your way, but feeling a bit homesick for them immediately. Read more

Getting no help, not enough time, falling behind, overwhelmed

Be Mindful of your HEART!

Presenter linkTimothy D. Kanold
Post date
Categories: PLC, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

Based on HEART! Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader

In Atlanta, Georgia on February 4th, 1968, as part of his message, The Drum Major Instinct, Martin Luther King stated:

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve…You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

Last week, I was working in the southwestern section of the state of Washington. I was about one hour into a 3-hour professional development session with a group of K-8 teachers and leaders, and I was not receiving a “heart full of grace” from one of the grade level teacher leaders. Read more