First of all, allow me to offer my appreciation and gratitude for the tremendous response we received from our maiden voyage of The Launching Pad. It is quite an endeavor for us to provide our colleagues, across the nation and beyond, another accessible source of information and new voices. It is indeed our mission to “provide a venue for the innovations, accomplishments, and soapboxes of the best and brightest unheralded educators in the field.” We feel this is just the beginning – for us as well as for our contributors. Education is a fickle and demanding profession, and to excel takes determination, sacrifice, hard work, support, and the ability to find out the information we need. Again, this is where The Launching Pad comes in. It is our simple goal to help.

As the summer reaches its midpoint, many of us try to keep our thoughts to vacations, time away, and escapes from the toils of life in school. Inevitably, however, the realities creep in – we can take the educator out of the school, but we can’t take the school out of the educator. We enjoy what we do, and we are always seeking ways to improve, to grow, and to learn.

Part of that learning includes summer reading, and among the journals and books at your nightstand lies The Launching Pad. In this issue, we investigate some of the tried and true practices of great principals, thanks to a couple of authors (Todd Whitaker and Sandra Harris) that have done a ton of research on the idea. We also have a look at Professional Learning Communities, talk shop with an outstanding alternative-school director from Memphis, and discuss the highlights of this past year’s top education conferences. And, as always, Derek Cordell will add a dose of common sense to send you off with your moral compass properly calibrated.

Professional growth is a constant force. We read, we attend conferences, we host workshops on site, we invite experts to share their wisdom, we conduct action research, we pursue other points of view, and we keep our eyes and ears open.

For many of us, the assault of research findings, new innovations, and the hot-topic du jour can be confusing and overwhelming. Rather than let ourselves get waylaid by the pendulum swing, we have begun to cultivate a discerning eye. We entertain the notion that individual and collective professional growth is driven by the beast within, not a product of the many changing external forces. We believe in self-reflection.

Rumination. The ability to discriminate. Critical thinking. Introspection. These are the engines that drive our inner vehicles, and these are the filters that allow us to make sense of the myriad data, information, results, and findings that all hail from underneath the Swiss-cheese umbrella of research-based practices. In order for us to comprehend the information presented to us, we need to understand our selves and our own place in the machine. We need to be willing to self-reflect.

So, as you make your way toward to bottom of the pile of literature on your nightstand, we encourage you to think critically about the content, perspectives, and information therein. How can you put these practices into place? How do they fit into your school community? What would you need to do to make this work for you? How can you get others to agree on this course of action? What did other authors have to say about this subject? What’s next?

Like I said earlier, education is a fickle and demanding profession. And we thank you for being a part of it.

Commence liftoff.