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In Part I of this series, I spoke to the importance of examining the unconscious strategies we use to navigate our roles and lives. I shared the shadow side of my seemingly benevolent strategy of “getting kids to like me” to prevent challenging behavior. And I asked you to reflect on the ways some of your own unconscious strategies might impact students and colleagues. In Part 2, I explore more ways self-awareness can increase your positive impact and reduce unconscious harm.

Decades of educational and psychological research have been compiled into three core benchmarks that directly align with Starling Collaborative's goals. 

As a young teacher back in 1990, my unconscious strategy for classroom management was to be really nice to students so they would feel motivated to do what I asked and be nice to me back. It worked. It turns out that being nice to students — treating them with dignity, as human beings with needs, hurts, and struggles of their own — creates the respect, safety, voice, and sense of belonging needed for authentic engagement and real learning. This strategy had a lot of positive

How Principals Can Slow Down, and Why They Might Want To, written by Jessica Cabeen, argues that while school leadership often defaults to relentless sprint-driven deadlines, crises, and initiatives, adopting a more deliberate and "slow" pace is the most effective way to achieve lasting institutional change and prevent burnout. A constant state of urgency, though initially exhilarating, eventually leads to exhaustion and the disorientation of not knowing how to maintain a sta