Our Work

 

 

 

"Every student has a dream inside them."

-11th grader, Chelsea, Massachusetts

Old Sow Consulting works with school administrators, principals, individual teachers and school teams on instructional improvement, leadership development, and issues of school culture and learning reluctance.  We believe that helping teachers and administrators "reconnect" to the meaning and purpose of their work is critically important to personal well being and the success of schools.

• We work with school administrators, principals, individual teachers and school teams.
• We offer specifically-tailored culture audits for school leaders who wish to engage in school transformation and instructional improvement.
• We provide ongoing coaching and support, and frequently meet with whole school teams to help facilitate organizational and cultural change.
• We help “re-envision” and support school leaders and teachers who often find their work chaotic and fracturing.
• We try to listen more than we talk.
• We believe that tapping the power of students to help themselves is central to the life of healthy schools.
• We are committed to leaders in schools that serve children, teenagers and young adults who have not succeeded in traditional academic environments.

We are not big fans of off-the-shelf professional development.  We carefully scaffold and build professional programs and workshop experiences to directly serve the strategic needs of our clients and partners.  We try to understand what our partners needs before designing any professional learning experiences.

Please see "Services" for individual professional development sessions, workshops and other keynotes recently offered.

 

"It's true that schools are incredibly complex organizations, and that too few people know how to do the work it takes to make them grow. It takes a rare combination of intellectual depth, honesty, and empathy for the ways people do this deeply personal work together. In her work with our school, Kirsten Olson entered with an open mind, heard our stories, challenged our assumptions, and was able to synthesize a school-wide plan of action.  In this project for instructional improvement, she herself was a powerful teacher--creating a space for deep reflection and honest talk, always holding the needs of the students paramount. We got what we'd most hoped for: not just good ideas, but new and profound ways of looking at our work.

The changes we saw in the classroom were swift and profoundly successful."

-Mike Mayo, Executive Director, Uphams Corner Charter School, July 2009