What Went Right

To be honest with you, the pandemic and subsequent lock down brought me to my knees on many days over the last few months and I am still feeling the impact. Everything was disordered, being reordered, and was nowhere near the order that I needed to see and feel.  I think educator moms had it…

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Invisible Infrastructure

I used to work for a person who talked about “infrastructure” a lot. He had grand plans and always felt like he needed more “infrastructure” to accomplish them. He would say, “I just need more infrastructure.”  The truth is, he was not wrong. He just spent so much time talking about it that it still…

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Process Not Product

When I was in elementary school, I used to play school all the time. I had a green chalkboard that could hang on the wall but it could also sit on the floor. I had white chalk most of the time, but every now and then, I would get my hands on colored chalk, which…

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Developing Developers

You might expect a company full of professional developers tell you how important professional development is. At ERG, we obviously think you should have access to high quality professional development so you can continue to be your best educator self and do great things for students. But what about professional development for the professional developer?…

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How to Get From Surviving to Thriving

In 2021, ERG is thriving. We’ve survived a pandemic and are gaining energy from the variety of opportunities to support teachers and students as they navigate this brand-new world of education. We are here for it. But we haven’t always been this way. ERG had to survive before it could thrive. In our early days,…

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Start Where You Are

Somewhere along the way I learned that writers should write what they know. There is a lot of discussion about the merit of this advice, but I interpreted it to mean that the best place to start is the place where you are.  That idea applies to a lot of things in life, and for…

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An Open Letter to Principals

Dear Principals, Let’s start off by saying we love you. You are all the metaphors: the lighthouse, the driver of the bus, the captain of the ship, the keeper of the gate, and the fountain of inspiration.  You really do have the ability to change lives, and ERG wants to see you succeed. So, it’s…

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4 Things Every Teacher Needs in 2021

I’ve thought long and hard about what teachers need this Teacher Appreciation Week. Gift giving in the pandemic is just not that simple. To make matters worse, last year’s Teacher Appreciation Week was kind of cancelled – no flowers, no special lunches, no apple coffee mugs. So the pressure is on in 2021. This year…

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From Parent Education to Growing All Learners

Early in the ERG story, Alice was called to a day of jury duty. While she was waiting there all day, she read a book that had been recommended to her as a way to build some business background. It was called Good to Great by James Collins, and The Hedgehog Concept was at the…

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Just Show Up

Once we signed the lease on our new space, we started coming to our new ERG office to work. We had actually been able to negotiate two rooms as part of our lease agreement. There was one large room that we thought would be perfect for having some workshops, as well as a small room…

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