SamTastic Weekly Tip: 10/6/25 - Have Friends and Potential Friends

This week’s tip: Have Friends and Potential Friends

SAM Principals know they can have friends and potential friends.  They can’t have enemies.  Why?  The mission is too important.  You have to stay focused on bringing all staff and school community members working on the common goal: Doing our best for student academic, social and emotional growth.

SAM teams work on how to communicate effectively.  Making others feel important is key.  What do you do with someone on your staff who believe they are always right…and you are always wrong?

Jefferson Fisher, a trial attorney who shares his advice on effective communications in books and podcasts, has a simple formula to follow:

“Remember: the goal isn’t to prove them wrong. It’s to keep your cool when it happens. Here’s exactly how to do it:

#1. Recognize the brick wall.

• If it feels like you’re talking to a brick wall, it’s because you are.

• People who always have to be right have tied their identity to it.

• That’s a wall you can’t change, but you can manage it.

#2. Don’t prove. Defuse.

• The harder you work to prove them wrong, the more they'll double down on their opinion.

• Instead, say something simple like, “Maybe you’re right” or “Maybe so.”

• That defuses the situation and prevents you from bumping your head against the wall they’ve put up.

#3. Initiate a second conversation.

• When things cool down, it’s easier to create a safe space to have a discussion that doesn’t feel threatening.

• Sit down and say, “Hey, can we revisit [topic]? It helps me to know you considered my perspective.”

• That way, you’ve opened the door for a real conversation.

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Note: 87% of the seats have been taken for the 19^th Annual National SAM Conference. 

Use this link to register::  https://registration.samprocess.com/ 

You will also find a registration link at www.SamProcess.com 

Would you like to be a breakout session presenter?   http://bit.ly/4pw0wWB

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19^th Annual National SAM Conference

Registration link:  https://registration.samprocess.com/ 

A few things to consider when planning to attend:

Ø The conference is January 15-18. 2026.

Ø To be eligible to attend, you must be a SAM team member doing the process with efficacy, NSIP staff, Board member or presenter.

Ø The conference will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Marriott Harbor Beach Resort

Keynote Speakers

·      Will Parker, Principals Matter: Living your Best Life as an Educator

·      Will Bowen, You Can’t Complain Your Way to Success

·      Tracie Swilley, The PrinciPAL Effect: Setting the Vibe, Energy, and Excellence Every Day

·      John Antonetti, Personal Response: Am I safe to share my thinking?

·      William Martinez, Signing the Song: The Power of Belonging

Pre-Conference All-Day Workshop Presenters

·      Jim Masters, Beyond Why and What – Getting to How School Leaders Make a Difference

·      Ken Williams, Better Teachers, Better Results: Where Students Learn Because Of US

·      Willow Sweeney, Top 20 Moves for Building Effective Staff and Student Relationships

·      Executive Speaking Coaching Seminar, New York Speech Coaching

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 9/29/25 - See Instruction Differently

This week’s tip: See Instruction Differently

Good SAMs make sure principals see teachers in action each day and follow up by scheduling time for thoughtful conversation, feedback.

Great SAMs make sure the principal does this in ways teachers and students appreciate.

Do you think silently observing a teacher in a classroom, completing check lists, or writing notes, is enjoyable for the principal?  Do you think most teachers like this practice? 

There are ways to see instruction, enjoy the process and have teachers and students thank you for the time.  Here’s two:

1. Be the teacher’s assistant while you observe.  Enter the classroom.  Say: “I’d like to be your assistant for the next 45 minutes while I watch you teach.  Put me to work.  Which student or group would you like me with work with today?”  This gives the leader a way to engage in the lesson by working with a student.  It is easier to stay focused on the lesson and makes the feedback conversation that will occur later meaningful and authentic.

2. Support great learning behavior when you observe.  Do a walkthrough in four classrooms, ten minutes, each.  Look for students exhibiting great learning behavior.  Select a student who impressed you the most.  Leave a ticket on the student’s desk: “Join me for lunch today at my table in the cafeteria.”  Do this in each of the four rooms.  In the lunchroom, if a ticket holder asks if they are in trouble, say: “No.  You are in good.  You got the ticket because I liked your learning behavior.”  Then, lead a discussion on what you saw.  Principals who do this say it is really fun.  They report teacher’s love it.  Selected students get face time with the principal.  All students get schooled on what the principal values.

Bonus: Flip bus duty to connect with teaching.  As students exit the building, tag three.  Ask what homework each student has today.  Ask each student to stop and see you the next morning when they arrive to show/share their homework.  For students who don’t have homework, give them a task.  For example: “Find one word in a book, magazine or on a screen that you aren’t sure of the meaning.  Figure out how you could use it in a sentence.  I’ll ask you tomorrow when you arrive.”  Then, the next morning, place a student desk on sidewalk with two chairs.  Talk to each of your three tagged students about their homework.  Principals who report doing this say it has an amazing impact on students.  It is also a lot of fun and, again, demonstrates what the leader values. 

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Last week’s Tip, Consider an AI Warning Label, generated a lot of thoughtful discussion.  We had requests to use the warning label and to share the Tip with others.  You are always welcome to share the SamTastic Weekly Tip with others and do not need permission.  You’ll find these weekly messages archived at www.SamProcess.com

To access and share last week’s tip directly, use this link:  https://bit.ly/48FWFjB

Here’s the label.  It is easy to copy and paste. 

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Note: 81% of the seats have been taken for the 19^th Annual National SAM Conference.  Use this  link to register: https://registration.samprocess.com/ 

You will also find a registration link at www.SamProcess.com

19^th Annual National SAM Conference

Registration link:  https://registration.samprocess.com/ 

A few things to consider when planning to attend:

Ø The conference is January 15-18. 2026.

Ø To be eligible to attend, you must be a SAM team member doing the process with efficacy, NSIP staff, Board member or presenter.

Ø The conference will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Marriott Harbor Beach Resort

Keynote Speakers

·      Will Parker, Principals Matter: Living your Best Life as an Educator

·      Will Bowen, You Can’t Complain Your Way to Success

·      Tracie Swilley, The PrinciPAL Effect: Setting the Vibe, Energy, and Excellence Every Day

·      John Antonetti, Personal Response: Am I safe to share my thinking?

·      William Martinez, Signing the Song: The Power of Belonging

Pre-Conference All-Day Workshop Presenters

·      Jim Masters, Beyond Why and What – Getting to How School Leaders Make a Difference

·      Ken Williams, Better Teachers, Better Results: Where Students Learn Because Of US

·      Willow Sweeney, Top 20 Moves for Building Effective Staff and Student Relationships

·      Executive Speaking Coaching Seminar, New York Speech Coaching

SamTastic Weekly Tip: 9/22/25 - Consider an AI Warning Label

This week’s tip: Consider an AI Warning Label

Artificial Intelligence is easy, quick and seemingly magical. It has become ubiquitous in schools and everyday life. Tech experts are nearly unanimous that AI can cause harm, however. Should AI use have a warning label, like cigarettes?

Schools and districts have tried to develop policies and enact rules to govern AI use. Is this effective? It might be helpful to hear a student’s point of view:

“A few weeks ago, my high school chemistry class sat through an “AI training.” We were told it would teach us how to use ChatGPT responsibly. We worked on worksheets with questions like, “When is it permissible to use ChatGPT on written homework?” and “How can AI support and not replace your thinking?” Another asked, “What are the risks of relying too heavily on ChatGPT?”

Most of us just used ChatGPT to finish the worksheet. Then we moved on to other things.

Schools have rushed to regulate AI based on a hopeful fiction: that students are curious, self-directed learners who’ll use technology responsibly if given the right guardrails. But most students don’t use AI to brainstorm or refine ideas — they use it to get assignments done faster. And school policies, built on optimism rather than observation, have done little to stop it.” William Liang, high school student and education journalist, San Jose, California.

You will find lots of articles suggesting ways teachers can effectively use AI. Little is shared on the risk and danger. Warnings about AI use come from people who pioneered the AI field: Google’s Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI”, Stephen Hawking, the late theoretical physicist and Tristan Harris, leading tech ethicist. AI use warnings include:

• AI can act in ways that are sometimes uncontrollable and not understood. Hinton and Hawking both warn AI could endanger human life.

• AI can create video deep fakes, present false information as fact, perpetuate biases and promote discrimination. Documented cases of AI chat-bots encouraging children to engage in self-harm are more than alarming.

• AI can use your personal information and content without permission. AI use of copyrighted information on the internet is rampant.

• AI in schools can lead to student cheating and lack of cognition.

So, what do you do as an educational leader? I don’t know. AI is everywhere and bans and guardrails are ineffective so far.

I think I would start by adding a warning label every time AI is promoted, mentioned or used in school, just like the FDA did with cigarettes in 1965:

The FDA’s cigarette warning label led to societal change at a time when the common thinking was that cigarette use could not be controlled.  It had an impact and, eventually, led to tobacco companies being held legally/financially accountable for the harm their products caused.

I think the same is possible when dealing with Artificial Intelligence, something we think we cannot control.  Keep in mind, when the iPhone was created in 2007, we thought we could not control cell phone use in schools.  It took nearly two decades, but cell phone use is now successfully restricted during instructional time in many schools.

I would engage students, teachers and parents in conversation about Artificial Intelligence use risks and how to decide when to use AI.  I would follow this with assessment of whether use is helpful or harmful in student learning.  I would not ban use.  I would not promote its use, either.

Finally, I thought it would be interesting to ask ChatGPT to create an Artificial Intelligence warning label, similar to what is found on cigarette packages.

Not bad, but did you notice ChatGPT promotes AI use at the end of the warning and suggests safe use is on you? Tech companies have avoided enactment of laws that would hold them accountable for AI use that causes harm…just like cigarette companies did for years. 

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Note:  74% of the seats have been taken for the 19^th Annual National SAM Conference.  Use this  link to register::  https://registration.samprocess.com/  You will also find a registration link at www.SamProcess.com

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19^th Annual National SAM Conference

Registration link:  https://registration.samprocess.com/ 

A few things to consider when planning to attend:

Ø The conference is January 15-18. 2026.

Ø To be eligible to attend, you must be a SAM team member doing the process with efficacy, NSIP staff, Board member or presenter.

Ø The conference will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Marriott Harbor Beach Resort

Keynote Speakers

·      Will Parker, Principals Matter: Living your Best Life as an Educator

·      Will Bowen, You Can’t Complain Your Way to Success

·      Tracie Swilley, The PrinciPAL Effect: Setting the Vibe, Energy, and Excellence Every Day

·      John Antonetti, Personal Response: Am I safe to share my thinking?

·      William Martinez, Signing the Song: The Power of Belonging

Pre-Conference All-Day Workshop Presenters

·      Jim Masters, Beyond Why and What – Getting to How School Leaders Make a Difference

·      Ken Williams, Better Teachers, Better Results: Where Students Learn Because Of US

·      Willow Sweeney, Top 20 Moves for Building Effective Staff and Student Relationships

·      Executive Speaking Coaching Seminar, New York Speech Coaching