I learned to teach at one of the lowest performing high schools in New Jersey. I broke up thirteen hallway fights in my first two months of teaching. That's not a detail to impress you — it's a structural fact. The practitioner who learns to teach where the first order of business is physical safety is calibrated differently. Theory either works in rooms like that, or it doesn't. You find out every Monday morning.What followed was twenty-five years of the same question at increasing scale — teaching in Jersey City, founding a high school in Newark, coaching leaders in Harlem and the South Bronx, and eventually driving leadership development across KIPP's 200+ schools nationally. In 2017 I founded Conscious Schools, which has since transformed the practice of thousands of teachers and leaders.Along the way I picked up a PhD in School Improvement and received dharma transmission as a Zen teacher. Both paths, it turns out, are about learning to see clearly.I write Unknow — essays on what it means to teach, lead, and pay attention.And I train teachers and leaders — thousands of them — researching, designing, and leading professional learning that actually changes practice. If you're planning something, I'd love to hear about it.